One Woman Show
by mkaz
Summary: In the mid 22nd century, humankind is in the grip of a global crisis that threatens extinction. The key to saving the world is locked inside the troubled mind of the the immortal Claire Bennett. Claire/Sylar Romance, Sylar/Peter Friendship. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own _Heroes_. This story is for my own amusement, and hopefully, yours too.

Walking across the frozen tundra, the thing Marina Cereza was the most aware of were her lips.

They were dry and cracked, so she allowed her tongue to slide out from between her teeth and run itself along the tiny fissures, tasting the salt and iron of her blood. Her saliva acted as a balm for the cut and burning pillows of flesh, but almost instantly the cold, dry air would remove the moisture and she would be compelled to repeat the procedure all over again.

She'd gotten a late start this morning, something she now regretted as the faded sun sat right above her head. By the time she got to the post, got the things they needed, and headed back, it would be nearly dark. Her hand slipped into the deep pocket of her black, oversized corduroy coat and caressed the wooden handle of her chef's knife. She always felt a bit of reassurance when her nails drummed against the metal, knowing that with this tool and her combat skills, she could be an impressive match for nearly any adversary, natural or human. The night held a multitude of dangers for her, and the ones she'd faced thus far had been manageable. But she didn't want to push her luck.

Her fist clenched involuntarily around her knife when she thought of why she was out so late: Claire had made her late. Marina had gotten up early that day, even earlier than was usual for her, so that she could gather enough ice and snow to make a bath for Claire. The old woman hadn't bathed in nearly two weeks, since the day they left Venezuela, and now she was beginning to smell. Having to camp on the plains, in such tight quarters as the tent – it was nearly intolerable.

So Marina had risen extra early, melted the precious patches of snow and ice clinging to the ground, boiled it to make it a little more pleasant for Claire, and dug up the best – and only – clean cloth they had left to give her a sponge bath. She waited as long as she could to awaken the old woman, knowing that she became irritable and defiant when she was forced to get up too early.

Marina stripped her of the blankets and rags she usually covered Claire in. Marina tried to be as gentle as possible, using her tenderest voice, her softest touch. But Claire was having none of it.

"I won't be boiled alive in your fire! You can't hurt me! Do you know who I am?" Claire shouted, clawing and kicking at Marina. Marina sighed and tried to get Claire onto her back and pin her arms and legs, knowing that this was the only way to subdue her. If she had to, she'd drag the ancient lady out of the tent and throw the water on her, but she wasn't going to sleep another night next to that filthy body.

"Claire. Claire, please," Marina pleaded, catching a frantic slap here and there from the other woman. It took ten minutes of struggling, but finally Claire seemed to calm down. She brought her arms to her sides and settled into the ground beneath her. She seemed to be giving in, but Marina should have known better.

She now cursed herself as she thought of the incident. For the moment Marina let her guard down, got off of the old woman, and turned her back to retrieve the soft washing cloth, Claire took the opportunity to roll to her feet, scamper to the cooling pot of water, and knock it over, splashing the precious liquid all over the floor of the tent. It ran out of the tent and onto the ground outside, melding with the frosty dirt and sand.

Marina stood cold in shock as Claire jumped up and down, her thick blonde braid swinging to and fro, and clapped her hands. "Tracy! Look, it's Tracy! Tracy on the ground, Tracy all around. Tracy! Tracy! Tra-"

Claire's mocking little song was cut short by a full-palmed slap to her face. She stumbled backward, falling against the side of the tent. She sat in shock on the ground, holding her cheek, as Marina towered above her, her eyes black with fury.

"You senile old bitch!" Marina roared at her. "Do you know how long it took me to make that bath? Now it's ruined!"

Claire's bottom lip began to tremble at these words, and soon the sea green eyes filled with tears. She curled up on the ground like a wounded animal, howling in pain.

At this Marina's anger subsided, and she instantly regretted what she'd done. She knelt next to Claire, holding her close and apologizing over and over again. She knew her blow wouldn't hurt Claire – not physically at least. But her rage wasn't going to do any good. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply, reminding herself once more that Claire did not do what she did to hurt Marina, or be malicious. She simply did not know any better.

Fortunately, Claire's short term memory was nearly non-existent, and just five minutes later she had stopped crying and was happily allowing Marina to re-dress her and tuck her under the furs and blankets again.

Marina dressed herself for her journey, and discreetly tucked her Calphalon into her pocket. She now knelt down next to Claire, who was playing with the cloth doll Marina had made for her.

"I need to go now," Marina told her. "But I'll be back real soon. You stay here and play with Dolly. Are you a good girl?"

"Yes, I'm a good girl."

"You're going to stay here, like I told you?"

"Yes, I'm going to stay here, like a good girl."

"All right." Marina leaned over and kissed the smooth, golden forehead, then got up to go.

"Mari?"

Marina stopped and turned around. "Yes."

"I'm hungry. When are we going to eat?"

"We'll eat when I get back, dear. That's where I'm going right now, remember? To get us some food."

"I'm hungry, Mari."

"I _know_, darling. I am too. Just stay here and keep Dolly safe until I get back, okay?"

"Okay."

Now it was coming up on noon, and Marina had just reached the post for this part of the island. Its red-rust galvanized roof gleamed in the sun, as if winking at her. She licked her cracked lips and pressed on, now seeing two of the Chaguanas Boys standing and staring at her.

She didn't like dealing with the Chaguanas Boys; truthfully, she didn't like dealing with anyone. She didn't care much for people. But she especially didn't appreciate the lewd looks like the dark men gave her, as if they were trying to look into her soul.

When Marina thought about the big picture, however, she was better off dealing with people like these. It was why she stayed away from the U.S. : everything so methodical, so organized. You always had to have your papers, and you had to pay in credits. The Americans were too intrusive for her taste. Everyone in the family had to be recorded, the credits were rationed out as they saw fit. And you could only live in certain areas within the "safe"zone. Marina hated being told what to do.

Traders like the Chaguanas Boys could care less about Marina's family or what her living arrangements were. They were willing to barter – as long as it was something good. Thanks to Marina's grandmother, who had hidden priceless commodities all over the world for her to find, trade usually wasn't a difficult thing.

Marina now stood before them, feet slightly apart, her hands in her pockets. Knife's handle held hot between the fingers of her right hand. She managed an easy smile and greeted them. "Gentlemen. I have an item I'm sure you'll like. Care to trade?"

One thing Marina had learned early on from dealing with them was that they always wanted to know that you had to offer first; they would get rude and belligerent, even violent, if you began by begging for something from them.

One of the men stood up – a tall man with caramel skin and curly black hair. Marina had traded with him before; his name was Ramroop. He looked at Marina as if she were some sort of rodent or vermin that was bothering him. "What ya got, gal?"

Marina opened her coat just enough to produce a small package wrapped in rags. Carrying it to the trading table, she unwound the scraps of fabric to reveal a pack of six soaps in glittery green cardboard, a tube of toothpaste, two bottles of shampoo, a pair of small scissors, and nail clippers. She held both ends of the rag while it lay on the table, ready to snatch it up again at the first sign of a cheat or double-cross.

She could tell they were interested. The eyes of the three men lit up, already imagining the sweet smells of the perfumes – the aromas and sights that were once taken for granted, but were now a treasure. Ramroop licked his lips and said, "What ya want for it?"

"Three pounds of food, a blanket, and footwear. Anything available will be fine," Marina added the second part reluctantly, but it was true. She was hungry, and desperate. She did her best to sound as casual as possible. She knew she couldn't trust these men as far as she could throw them, and she knew that just the slightest hint of desperation in her voice or body language would put her at their mercy.

"Two pounds, not tree!" another man, who was darker and bald, and chewing on a toothpick, bellowed from the mouth of their tent.

Marina stared calmly past the curly haired man to the other . "Three pounds of food, no blanket."

Another man, this one light skinned with a black ponytail, sidled up to her and laughed. "Eh eh, ya hungry, gal? I got something to put in ya mout."

Marina's thigh itched as she imagined the long chef's knife lying against it in her pocket. She stood calmly, ignoring the comment and the cackles of laughter they produced from the other men. Soon her stillness and silence began to unnerve the Chaguanas Boys and the curly haired one finally got up and brought her what she'd requested.

Only the food was brought out. Marina met the gaze of Ramroop and said firmly, "The footwear."

The man grinned, showing his ugly black teeth. He cocked his head back and shouted, "Eh, Arun! Bring the gal some foooot war!"

A pair of cracked foam thong flip flops were dumped in front of her. "Your foooot war, madam," Arun, who turned out to be the rube with the ponytail, said with a mock bow.

Marina looked at the flip flops. "Fuck this," she said quietly, tying up her trading bundle as fast as lightning and walking away at top speed.

With that, Ramroop cried out, desperate not to lose that sweet bundle of goods. "Eh eh, no, gal! Wait, nah! We's just playing a little. Wait, nah. Eh, Sato! Sato, bring this lady some boots!" This made Marina stop in her tracks, now several yards away.

Ramroop usually would not have been so accommodating. Had it been any other female, he probably would have had his boys knock her down and take it. But it was something about this one…she had a dangerous look in her eyes, like she was holding some great and terrible power inside of her. Ramroop wasn't a superstitious man, but he believed there were things one couldn't see. He wasn't going to push his luck.

Marina was still standing with her back to them, still clutching her trade bundle. She heard the sound of even, careful steps behind her, and saw a package of food and a pair of black rubber boots presented to her left. With her left hand she took them, then pivoted on her heel to hand her bundle to the man, Sato, a muscular Japanese with a beard. His eyes were sad but honest, and he took her package with what seemed to almost be gratitude.

She thanked him, and then he did something that surprised her. He leaned in, ever so slightly, and whispered, "Nothing lasts forever." Before she could react, he was already walking away.

She looked back at him, toward the setting afternoon sun, and then down at the ground. Her boot was touching something.

It was a lighter.

Marina's eyes darted back to the tent, where the Chaguanas Boys were already beginning to dig through the parcel she'd traded. They weren't paying attention to her.

The Japanese man must have dropped it when he leaned in to her. He'd know it was gone sooner or later, and they would probably come after her to get it. But oh, how nice it would make things to have one! To be able to make cooking fires within seconds instead of hours! To have light in the tent at night! She might actually be able to read while Claire slept.

The decent thing Marina could do was to give it back to them. Standing there, hearing their lewd laughter, however, made her rethink that. Quick as a flash she scooped the lighter and put it in her pocket. It was full of fluid. It was like a blessing from heaven.

The journey back to camp seemed easier than the journey out, which was ironic since Marina had a heavier load to carry than before. The faint smell of the food coming through the package was a pleasant inducement, and the evening felt virgin and mild. It was about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4 degrees Celsius, on that part of the island – one of the warmest places on Earth. As Marina walked across the stiff and brown plain that was once sandy and pull of palm trees, she dared to think those "useless thoughts" that she often fought back for her own good.

She had lots of useless thoughts, some about the family she'd lost, some about Claire, but most were naturally about herself. Tonight's useless thought – an old one, yet always fresh – was this: "Who would I have been if the world hadn't gotten in my way?"

Marina dared to wonder out loud, and out of the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw two people standing there, listening to her sympathetically. But when she turned to look at them, they were gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_January 4, 2020 – One hundred and fourteen years before the Crisis_

Raymond Fredericks sat nervously in the lushly furnished waiting room of Dr. Mullens. He tried not to fidget, but when he stopped, the sound of his own heart roaring in his ears was deafening.

He had no idea why the most important man in the world had asked for an audience with him. Raymond was a nobody. He came from an obscure little town in the Midwest; no one in his family had ever done anything important. He even went to a college no one had ever heard of and had a job that meant nothing to people outside of the company. Even his face was forgettable.

And yet, here he was, on a rainy Monday afternoon, his first time in New York City. Two well-dressed men came to his door at 7 am on the dot that morning, requesting his company. They ushered him into a private plane bound for New York, and he was then driven to Park Avenue in a limousine. He now sat waiting to see a man that people would have done anything to just catch a glimpse of in a crowd.

Sitting there now, his fingernails digging into his thighs, Raymond began to wonder if this appointment was to confirm one of his pet whims he'd had all his life: that despite his ordinary, mediocre life, he was meant for great things.

"Mr. Fredricks?"

Raymond looked up at the pretty blonde assistant now standing above him. "Yes?"

"Dr. Mullens will see you now. Follow me, please."

Raymond made his way into a large office with big bright bay windows and shelves of books lining the walls. At the center of the room was a small, spry man with black slicked back hair, his back to Raymond, leaning over a heavy oak desktop to read something. Raymond cleared his throat by reflex, and the man turned around.

"Ah, Mr. Fredericks!" Dr. Mullens greeted his guest hardily, practically sprinting to him to shake his hand.

Raymond smiled nervously. "It's such a pleasure to meet you sir. I'm honored you invited me."

"Well, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy life to meet with me. I'm working on a very important, very complex assignment, and I think you are a piece of the puzzle that I've been missing. Won't you sit down?"

Raymond settled into the black leather chair he was directed to, his back, neck and ass feeling as though they were being given a wonderful massage. He smiled anxiously at his host, who was sitting with this fingers tipped against his mouth, as if he were trying to find the right words to say.

It should be noted that anyone who knew anything about Dr. Saul Mullens would never believe that he could have difficulty in conversing. The man was a master of rhetoric, admired by those on either side of the Evolution topic. Even his presence held an intangible charm that made you want to sit and listen to the words he said. Everyone expected him to announce his candidacy for president any day now. Raymond pondered his now, thinking of how he'd be able to tell people someday that he had actually sat down and talked with the President of the Free World.

"You are probably aware of this, Mr. Fredericks, but I was an anthropologist before my quote-unquote political career," Dr. Mullens began with a smile. "And no matter where this new endeavor of mine takes me, my first love will always be the 'study of us' as I like to call it. Which brings me to the reason I asked you here."

Dr. Mullens opened the drawer to his mahogany desk, and produced an object about the size of a fist, wrapped in a purple cloth. "During my last trip to Rome, I came across this ancient artifact. From my research, I deduced that it came from the Carranzano family of Verona. Are you aware of the Carranzanos, Mr. Fredericks?"

Raymond's chest was heavy with anticipation. "My mother's maiden name was Carranza."

"Hm, yes," Dr. Mullens replied with a low chuckle. "A slightly shortened version of the old family name. Your immediate family is…deceased?"

Raymond looked away, towards the grey sky framed in the windows. "Yes. They were killed in the Jumper Riots."

"I am very sorry. Have you any more family?"

"Two cousins, and an uncle on my father's side. None left on my mother's. Just me."

"That's what I had suspected. I do apologize for my intrusive questions, but you see, I needed to know if there was anyone, besides yourself, that needed to make a decision regarding this artifact. Once we verify your heritage and family records, you will have the opportunity to decide the fate of the object. I…do hope that you will consider donating it to my foundation, so that others can appreciate its rich beauty and history."

Raymond paused. He didn't know what the thing was that Dr. Mullens had found, but if it was rightfully his and valuable, he definitely didn't want to pass up an opportunity to make some money. His mind quickly raced through the possible worth of the object, and what he might be able to make off of it. Then the possibilities for the money took over. His mouth was nearly watering from eagerness.

"May I - may I see the object, Dr. Mullens?" Raymond leaned forward slightly in excitement.

Dr. Mullens did not hesitate in granting the request. The purple cloth was stripped away to reveal what appeared to be a multi-sided box carved out of a dark red stone. Raymond was transfixed by it.

Seeing his fascination, Dr. Mullens asked gently, "Would you like to hold it?"

The box was placed in Raymond's hands. On the outside, it was a cube, just a cube, a box. But as he sat there, holding it, he could see into it. He could look into the box, and see another box. And that other box was made of the outside box. The walls folded into each other and emerged. Folded and emerged.

Folded and emerged.

Raymond blinked, and held the box away, rubbing his sinuses with the other hand. "It's, um, it's beautiful, Dr. Mullens. Thank you." He placed the object on the desk.

The doctor smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Fredericks. You've been very helpful." He picked up the object and walked past Raymond, to a bookshelf that sat by the door.

"Do you still need me to very my family history, Dr. Mullens?"

"Oh, I thought it would be necessary at first, but now, I can see that it isn't. You are very clearly a Carranza," Dr. Mullens replied, putting the box into a metal case on the bookshelf. "I must say, Mr. Fredericks, I'm very glad I asked you here."

Raymond was about to turn around and give his thanks, but he didn't get the chance. The reason being, he was dead from a lethal injection to the back of the neck, half a second after Dr. Mullens had finished his sentence.

Raymond slumped forward, onto the mahogany desk. Dr. Mullens calmly pulled the needle out of his neck, walked to the other side of the desk, and pressed a button on the intercom.

A side door opened, and a tall, skinny man with flaming red hair entered the room. He looked down at Raymond's body.

"Do it, please," Dr. Mullens said.

The red-haired man poked a bony, freckle-covered finger into Raymond Fredericks' temple, and the process began. The man's flesh changed, twisting and bubbling over his bones. He grunted in pain as there was a slight reshifting in certain organs, a pulling and pressing of certain muscles. The final change was the altering of skin tone, from pale and dotted to smooth and olive.

What once had been Raymond Fredericks was now a pile of ash, heaped in an unexpectedly neat pile on the black leather seat. The new Raymond Fredericks now stood over the ash. He looked down at himself and realized that he was a few inches shorter, and his suit did not fit well.

Dr. Mullens noticed it too. "Go downstairs to Wardrobe and get refitted before you head home, would you?"

"Yes, sir. What story would you like?"

The doctor looked absently at the ash heap and said, "Oh, I think suicide is good for this one. Dead end job, no family, past trauma – I don't think it will be a problem."

"Is there a…method you prefer?"

"Whatever is the cleanest for you…_Raymond_," Dr. Mullens replied with a warm grin.

"Yes sir. Does this take care of the Carranzas?"

"Yes, fortunately this was the easy one. There are still four other lines we need to take care of: the Redstones, the Azizes, and Nakamuras."

Dr. Mullens shuddered ever so slightly at the mention of the last name. Contrary to common advice, he decided to save the hardest for last. But it would get done. He had no doubt of it.

"Very well. I will wait for your instructions." Raymond made his way to the door.

"Oh, Mr. Fredericks?" Dr. Mullens called out. The new man turned around quickly, getting used to the name.

"Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year, sir," Raymond replied, and left.

Dr. Mullens pressed the button on his intercom and waited for his secretary's cheery voice to greet him. When it did, he asked her to please bring the special leather upholstery cleaner to his office as soon as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was just a pale streak of pink across the horizon when Marina returned to her camp. She was tired and her feet hurt, and now her stomach gave her stabbing pain every time she breathed, it was so empty. But she'd gotten what she needed and returned alive, and for that she was grateful.

She was only steps away when she heard what sounded like a man's voice projecting itself assertively from inside her tent. She froze in her tracks, her fingers deftly pulling her Calphalon out of her pocket in anticipation of a fight. She hunched down slightly, creeping towards the maroon vinyl triangle in the sand. She was about four feet away when she realized what she had heard was Claire, giving a speech to a crowd of thousands, visible only to her.

Feeling only slightly embarrassed, Marina slid the knife back into her pocket and pulled back the flap of the tent. The inside was pitch black, and Marina wondered if Claire could see in the dark, among her many gifts. With a proud smirk, Marina flicked the dial on the lighter she'd plucked from the sand to produce the tiniest of flames. Claire was on the far side of the tent, facing the wall. Her arms were outstretched as she began what sounded like the conclusion to her speech.

"And so, my fellow citizens, I am not asking you to live in fear, for fear is only a cause and never a solution. I am asking you to acknowledge that we are living on the cusp of something incredible, something that has never been experienced or witnessed before. Whether you choose me or my opponent, I have confidence that whatever challenges await us, we will surmount them – together."

After lighting the poor little tallow candles she had and shrugging off her layers of clothing, Marina's own personal challenge was cutting through the food package she'd just bartered. Her difficulty was owed in part to her own frantic hunger, which was now causing her fingers to jitter – a terrible feeling. To be so close to your prize, only to be deterred by your own desire. Finally the offensive twine was cut away, revealing the beautiful salted and peppered fish, the ground chick peas (_chana_ in Trinidad vernacular), the flat, stretchy roti, and the masala (a dark, hot, fragrant mess of any vegetation the Chaguanas Boys' farm suppliers could tease and cajole out of the ground).

Marina pulled the cracked foil pie tins out of the supply bag and began preparing a plate for Claire. Judging by the current point in the supercentenarian's speech, she would be finished soon and ready to tuck into her food. Marina pulled out a second pie plate for her own meal, and caught a glimpse of herself in its shining metal reflection. She wasn't a vain woman by any means, but now and again she allowed herself a self-evaluation.

Marina was attractive, by most standards of measurement. She was thin and tall, her body strong and wiry from years of living outdoors in the elements and keeping her combat skills sharp. Her eyes were a clear blue, from her mother, which contrasted with her honey skin, which came from her father. Her hair was a dark auburn, but Marina could now see in the plate that there was a thin line of grey developing down the center. She was only 28, but she lived a hard life, and it aged her. That was all right; it could have been much worse. Grey hair was the least of it.

Of course, Marina's looks paled in comparison to Claire's delicate blond beauty, which constantly refreshed itself, like the sun. Claire was over 150 years old by now, Marina had to guess, but she had the same body she'd had at 15. Marina now looked up from the plate and saw Claire staring at her with wide eyes.

"This is a catered event, isn't it?" she asked.

* * *

The two women ate in silence, Claire because she was too busy gobbling down her food in handfuls, Marina because she simply had nothing to say. The temperate had dropped several degrees now that night had set in, and Marina began to shiver in her torn burlap blanket. She wished she'd gotten a new blanket at the trading post, but she really needed the new boots. The ragged amalgamation of animal fur, plastic tarp, and tire rubber she presently wore on her feet wasn't going to work much longer.

Marina finished the last of her food and pushed the plate away. She closed her eyes, trying to think of where to go next. Trinidad was pleasant enough, but she didn't like to stay anywhere for too long – it made her uneasy. She wasn't running from anything – nothing that she was consciously aware of, anyway – but there always seemed to be an unspoken drive in her to keep going, to not become too comfortable anywhere.

"Not that being too comfortable has ever been a problem," Marina said out loud, in response to her thoughts. She opened her eyes quickly, realizing that she had spoken out loud. But Claire hadn't seemed to notice. She was in a whispered conversation with herself and chewing on her long, gold braid.

Perhaps Tobago. It was Trinidad's sister island, just across the water, and it was just as pleasant terrain-wise. Marina didn't have to venture out tomorrow except to gather firewood; she'd have time to decide.

Marina's train of thought was broken by a loud, demanding, yet polite voice outside of her tent. "Ms. Cereza!"

Claire squealed and jumped up to leave the tent, only to be shoved back by Marina. "Stay where you are, or else," the younger woman warned. She picked up her knife, and shoved it into the back pocket of her pants.

Marina threw back the flap on the tent to find the Japanese man from the trading post standing outside for her. A large, beaten van was parked behind him with the headlights blazing. "What is it?" she asked him.

"You have something of mine, Ms. Cereza," Sato informed her, not wasting any time. "I want it back."

Marina blinked. She thought of the silver lighter, resting in her pocket at that moment. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"All right. I'll be back with the rest of my group in fifteen minutes. Perhaps after we search your entire tent, your memory will come back to you." Sato saw the slight twinge of fear in her eyes, and took his opportunity to strike. "I know you picked up the lighter, so obviously you thought you could use it. I'm willing to let you keep it, if you can pay me for it."

Marina knew exactly where he was going with this, but decided to play along. "I'm afraid I don't have anything to trade right now, Mr. Sato. Isn't there some other way we could work this out?"

Sato smiled. "Perhaps we can discuss this in your tent?"

Marina hesitated, shifting uncomfortably from one leg to the other. It wasn't his proposition that bothered her; she was certainly no stranger to paying for things with her flesh. She was just uncomfortable with Claire being there. At least when she'd done it last time – to get passage on the boat from Venezuela – she'd been able to stash her in one of the cabins while she "talked payment" with the captain.

There had been other times when the man she had to deal with had no patience for her custodial duties and barked, "We either fuck right here and now, or no deal. Let the kid watch. She's gotta learn sometime," or something to that effect.

It was something that Marina tried to avoid at all costs. She wanted to protect Claire, or at least try to preserve some sort of image she'd created of herself. All those times when she'd had to sell herself to get the things they needed, all those times she lay on some dirty floor with a hairy-backed ape grunting over her – she tried to convince herself that Claire couldn't understand what was going on, that her mind was too damaged. But Marina was never fully successful in doing so.

Marina noticed the look on Sato's face change, and she realized that Claire had emerged from the tent and was grinning at him in her mad way. Marina excused herself and began to push her back into the tent.

"Didn't I tell you to stay put? You get back in there, now!" Marina snapped at her.

Claire giggled. "His eyes aren't like yours," she stated, pulling up her eyelids in mimicry of Sato's Asian descent.

Marina rolled her eyes. "Good lord, how have you not gotten me killed yet? Please Claire, for God's sake, please try to understand what I'm doing and stay in the goddamn tent for just a little while!"

Claire looked hurt, but there was a glint of comprehension in the midst of the usual vacancy that her eyes held, and she disappeared into their dark home. Marina suddenly felt very small and very empty. Sighing, she turned and walked determinedly to Sato.

"We're doing it in your truck," she told him as she marched past. "By the time I'm done with you, you're going to owe me extra."

* * *

"So how old were you when it happened?"

"When what happened?"

Sato chuckled and reached for his bottle of hooch from behind their heads. "That young, huh?"

Marina ignored him and pulled the dark, greasy covers closer to her. She didn't want to talk, but she didn't feel like getting up just yet. The van was warm – far warmer than her worn little tent. The back seat she and Sato were now lying on was wide and smelled of oil. She was completely naked for the first time in a while, and it wasn't miserably cold. She knew she couldn't stay there – not that she wanted to – but she would stay until he made her leave. And he didn't seem like he wanted her leave just yet, fortunately.

"I was fourteen when the Crisis happened," Sato told Marina. "Still living in Japan, my family was still alive. I was on a field trip fifty miles away when the storms hit Okinawa. There was nothing left afterwards. If the storms had happened any other day…I wouldn't be here."

Marina nodded, now vaguely interested. "You'd be with them."

Sato nodded and took a swig of his drink. "Yes. Want some?"

Marina hesitated, then took the bottle from him. The liquid burned like acid in her throat and she coughed viciously, just barely holding back her gag reflex. "Jesus Christ. Did you bottle your brake fluid?"

Sato laughed. "I am sorry, it's pretty bad. Ramroop makes it from whatever he can find. I'll take it."

Marina gladly handed it back to its owner. "So…do you ever wish you'd gone with them? Your family, I mean."

Sato took so long to answer that Marina was afraid she'd offended him. Finally he replied, "Yes. All the time. I think that's how most of us who survived feel."

Marina considered this. She was six when the Crisis happened, too young to understand the rapid change in the weather and the panic that surrounded her. Her grandmother had held things together for the family, but she was over ninety by then and kept promising Marina that she wasn't going to live much longer. Her father, a tenderheart and a bit of a coward by nature, complained that this wasn't the end, but only the beginning of their troubles.

By thirteen, Marina was orphaned and on her own and left to take care of her great-grandmother, who'd been a few eggs short of a dozen for as long as she could remember. As far as Marina knew, she wouldn't live much longer herself. So she lived. She ate, she slept, she made sure that Claire ate and slept. She learned to fight to keep them safe. She hunted, she traded, she fought when she had to, sold her flesh when she had no choice.

She didn't consider what she did to be her life, or living. It was simply existing until the inevitable came. And Marina certainly never held some spiritual hope that she would be reunited with her grandmother and father when the time came. If the afterlife was some sort of living after death, she wanted no part of it. She'd had enough.

As if partially reading her mind, Sato said, "I guess you don't really feel that way. You have your sister."

The Japanese man was one of the many who'd confused Claire with being her sister. Eventually people would assume Claire was her daughter, and after that, her granddaughter. And after that…well, hopefully by then there would be someone else to take care of her.

Marina no longer wanted to linger in the van. She sat up, pulling her hair back into its usual haphazard ponytail and reaching over to the front seat to gather her clothes. "Well, thanks for the chat, Mr. Sato. I should be going."

Sato gently caught her arm and rolled over to lie on top of her. "Stay. Just a little while longer."

Marina realized something at that moment. Sato must have deliberately dropped his lighter when he gave her the package. He needed an excuse to come after her. Part of her was moved by this, but she was overwhelmingly put off by it. She had no time or patience for sentiment.

"I can't," she said softly.

Sato bent his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth, teasing the pointed pink flesh. "Just another hour," he said between kisses.

"It won't make any difference," Marina managed to moan out.

Sato cupped the mound between her legs and squeezed. "If you stay, you can have this blanket. And the other one in the trunk."

Marina closed her eyes, knowing he'd won. "Oh, deal," she sighed.

* * *

Claire stopped her lullaby to Dolly mid-verse. The singing wasn't working anymore and the knocking on her brain was getting worse. She knew they were trying to get in. They were trying to tell her that it was time to go.

"Oh go away! God, just go!" she told them. "The cupcakes can bake themselves."

She heard a faint sipping sound in the corner of her mind, and she reluctantly turned her head to see her father sitting in his chair, reading his leather-bound copy of Shakespeare Reunited, a cup of black coffee to his side. His brown-rimmed glasses caught the light of his reading lamp and made his eyes look gold.

"Daddy," she whimpered. He didn't answer her, didn't look at her. Even now, after all these years, he was still angry at her. He always would be.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know," she pleaded with him. "I would have done things so differently if I did."

He put down his book, and for a moment, her heart leapt with the anticipation that he was finally going to look at her. Instead, he reached over and turned out the light on her.

Claire sighed and turned now to the right, finally giving over to the desperate sound of their knocking. "I know I have to do it," she told them, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm afraid for her. What if she doesn't make it?"

She could hear them whispering their reassurances. It was funny how they didn't have to speak real words for her to understand; she could feel what they were telling her.

Claire wiped away a tear. "All right. All right, yes, I know."

She pulled back the wool blanket she was sitting on and dug her nails into the soil beneath her. Her fingertips just made contact with the point of the shard of glass she'd hidden there two days ago, when Marina left her to get firewood. She pulled the glass out of the ground with one hand, and with the other, she felt along the flesh of her upper right thigh, using the pads of her fingers. It had been years; she hoped she remembered where it was hidden.

Finally, her fingerpads sensed that one tiny spot that was just slightly cooler than the rest of her flesh. Taking a deep breath, she plunged the shard into her thigh, cutting through the skin and muscle to get to the treasure inside.

"I know you're there, I know you are…" Claire muttered between her teeth. Finally, she felt it. Rolling her eyes toward the sky, she fished the precious item out of its decades-old resting place. Her blood lubricated its passage to the outside world.

Ten minutes later, Claire had thrown a wrap over her oversized grey shirt, put on the new boots Marina bartered for the day before, and disappeared into the night, blazing the trail that her great-granddaughter would be compelled to follow just hours later.


	4. Chapter 4

Claire Bennett's impromptu plummet from a ferris wheel in Central Park changed everything, for everyone. What was known and accepted was rewritten in one night.

678,953 people were injured, maimed, or killed in the 3 day aftermath of the revelation, later termed the "Jumper Riots" by the history books. It was a nationwide panic reaction to the unedited video of a 19 year old girl surviving a 200-foot fall without a scratch. People naturally thought it was the end of the world.

Nearly twenty five percent of the people killed in the riots were police officers. Two days after the riots officially ended, the police called a strike in respect to their fallen comrades. Vigilante law took over the streets.

Those with the extremist streak took advantage of the newfound fear and ignorance and formed groups to protect honest, normal, God-fearing people from the demons in human skin who walked among them. There was God's Children, The Foundation for Equality, and the ultra-pious Brotherhood of the Athenians, the last of which were suspected in the murders of nearly 500 Specials between the years of 2012 and 2014 alone.

Fear and hatred ran equally high on the other end of the pole. There were secret underground groups of posthumans that had been around for years, and while their first message was always the same – protection for those with abilities – their philosophy on everything else was as different as the stars in the sky.

Some were grateful that the truth had finally come out – they praised Claire Bennett for her bravery. They saw her as the poster child for acceptance of specials.

Others hated Claire Bennett with a passion. They argued that she had no right to expose them the way she had, and that she'd endangered all of them with her recklessness. Many called for her head, and in spite of the fact that it was doubtful she could die, many were looking forward to the challenge.

And there were still others more who could have cared less under what circumstances the truth was exposed. They felt that evolution had divided the species into two distinct groups that transcended age, gender, race, sexual orientation. Those with abilities were naturally the superior group, destined to surpass those without. It was simply a matter of survival of the fittest.

Parents kept their children at home, terrified of letting them outside to play. People refused to go to work, holing up in their homes and hoarding supplies instead. No one trusted what they read in the papers or saw on television.

It certainly didn't help that eight weeks after the Jumper Riots, when things seemed to be cooling down and the world was slowly returning to normal, a beloved TV anchor on a popular morning news broadcast took his own life on live television. He was exposed as a Special by one of the cameramen, whose affections he had spurned, and who finally found a way to take his revenge. Almost 1 million people had tuned in that day and witnessed the charming, easygoing 39 year-old news anchor turn to the camera with a tear-stained face and put a gun to his head.

China, India, and France quickly passed laws mandating testing for abilities. Each country created its own "identification" which those with abilities had to carry with them at all times. Children who tested as special were pulled out of their schools and away from their friends and sent to separate educational facilities, even if their abilities did not have an impact on their intelligence level or their abilities hadn't even manifested themselves yet.

Other countries that were already well known for their tolerance, such as Canada, welcomed Specials whole-heartedly, the rationale being, "These people have lived among us all these years without incident. Why should it be any different now?"

Americans and Mexicans flocked to Canada to escape the violence and unpredictability of their own countries. The U.S. government, watching its economy brought to its knees by the flight of its workers to more welcoming countries, frantically tried passing legislation to please all groups concerned.

The solution came in the form of a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, similar to that enacted for homosexuals serving in the military in the 90's. The people regarded each other with quiet suspicion, but the violence and the mayhem had stopped. It was a success…for a while.

Until a former government operative from Building 26 revealed the extent of the government's prior knowledge of people with abilities. The government denied everything the informant claimed, arguing that she was simply a disgruntled ex-employee. But when she was able to produce extensive documentation of the intelligence that had been gathered, and when several of her former colleagues and even one of the people who had been captured for observation came forward and corroborated her story, the truth was the only acceptable option.

For only the second time in American history, a sitting president resigned to avoid impeachment. Andre Dubose had started a promising first term as a the first black American president; now, he would be known for hiding the world's most important – and dangerous – secret from his people.

So there were many people who would look back on those years following Claire Bennett's leap from the ferris wheel and say that they were some of the worst they'd ever faced.

There was one man, however, who would look back on those years and state, unequivocally, that they were his best.

There was one man there that night in New York, who watched Claire Bennett fly for the briefest of moments through the air, and felt like he was waking up from a paralyzing dream. This man stood next to his friend, Peter Petrelli, and knew that he was waking up in a brave new world, a world that this girl had created for him.

Seeing her fly through the air, this man now knew the root of his hunger and his power and his rage. He killed not only because he wanted to be special, but because he hated people. Their lives meant no more to him than that of the insects that crawled on the ground. He'd lived long enough to realize that human beings were divided into two groups: the Idiots and the Liars.

He'd met many Idiots in his time, and several of them he'd killed, feeling he was doing them a favor – putting them out of their misery. He usually reserved his swiftest and least painful methods of murder for them.

The Liars, however, he held a very special contempt for. When he thought of people like Angela and Arthur Petrelli and Elle Bishop, Noah Bennett, and even his own father – planners and plotters and schemers all of them – his rage was nearly unbearable. These people were his equals in terms of intellect and ambition – the most like him. But their self-serving plots and their manipulations had driven him over the edge.

And then, here was this girl, Claire Bennett, who had no plans. He knew that it took her only seconds to decide to do what she was now doing, not thinking of the consequences or how it would suit her goals. She wore her love and her hate all over her; she was unapologetic for the things she felt and did. She conquered her fear and doubt; she conquered herself, in a way.

He'd known her for only a few years now. At first he was fascinated with her, like a puzzle to be solved. He simply wanted to get the secret treasure hidden in her brain, the way he had with all the others.

When he finally wrenched it out of her, however, he was surprised to find his curiosity hadn't faded when his hunger was quelled. There was something about her that made her different from everyone else in the world; he just didn't know what it was.

Her hatred of him grew month by passing month, and he could feel its depth, its purity, its intensity, as he took more and more from her. But he knew he'd rather have Claire's genuine hatred than any contrived passion, affection, or even friendship that any other woman might dare to offer.

Sylar watched as Claire Bennett jumped, and fell in love.


	5. Chapter 5

They swarmed her, on every side. Their voices, raised in question, were practically deafening. She couldn't move at all; the crowd seemed to be digging into her very flesh. She was so claustrophobically encumbered she didn't even have the space to expand her diaphragm and scream in protest.

Peter watched the scene with horror. He couldn't believe what his niece had done, how she had taken such a foolish risk. His anger and disbelief were tempered by his fear for her; he simply had to get her away from those vultures.

He prepared to fly to Claire's rescue, only to feel his arm being held back.

He turned around to face Sylar, who was holding his arm with a determined look. Peter shot him an equally resolved frown and muttered, "Let me go."

"No, Peter. You can't help her here."

Peter's response was cut short by a helicopter flying overhead, and dozens of police cars now appearing on the scene. There were officers stalking to the circus that had now formed below the ferris wheel. They pushed the reporters back, flinging them away like useless flecks of paper. Peter could just make out two officers escorting Claire into the back of a van.

He attempted to leave again, but Sylar held fast to his arm. He let out a groan of frustration and yelled, "Damnit Sylar – get off of me, man! I have to help her! They'll slice her up like a lab rat!"

"I realize that. But we can't just storm after her; we'll make things worse. We need to follow them and make a plan to rescue her."

Peter's brow cocked. "_We_? You haven't grown bored of the hero job yet?"

Sylar grinned. "Well, it helps when there's a damsel in distress to rescue. It looks like it's starting to be my M.O."

* * *

No one would talk to her. No one would tell her what they were planning to do.

The police whisked her away from Central Park to a nondescript location, and had put her in a windowless holding cell. That was two hours ago, and Claire still hadn't spoken to anyone.

She was cold in the room, tired and hungry as well. She leaned her head against the wall, sitting on the meager little shelf that appeared to double as a chair and a bed.

She had half-expected her father to have arrived by now, speaking just the right words, using just the right methods, and she'd be out of this cell and subject to his gentle but stern reprimand for what she had done.

But he wasn't there. Claire wondered now how angry he was with her. They'd butted head several times over the years, she'd been furious with him as she uncovered each layer of his duplicity. Each and every time, when he pleaded with her to understand, he used the same explanation: he was doing it to protect her.

In one fell swoop (no pun intended), she had made everything he'd ever done meaningless. The world knew the truth, in spite of Noah Bennett's insistence that people were incapable of coping with it.

Claire now considered that perhaps that was why no one had spoken to her; they simply didn't know how to approach her.

Five minutes after she'd had this thought, she heard a door swing open. Her heart pounding, Claire jumped from her seat and stood cautiously near the door to her cell.

A guard that must have been at least seven feet tall entered first, his face devoid of human emotion. He held the door open for a small, gray-haired man in a labcoat that produced a faint memory of her adopted grandfather. The man looked her up and down quickly, as if sizing up a cut of meat at the market.

"Your name is Claire Bennett," the man said, his tone making it a statement rather than a question.

"Yes," she replied, trying to remove any trace of fear from her voice.

The man smiled and took off his glasses, then started wiping them on his clean white coat. "We'll start the tests tomorrow, at 10 AM. You'll be fed four hours prior to that. We will send you garments to change into shortly." The man stopped wiping his glasses long enough to point to the metal drawer built into the wall – their method of delivery to their prisoners.

Claire looked at the man in disbelief. "What do you mean, tests?"

The doctor ignored her and turned to the guard. "Be sure you and your men load the H-223 instead of the standard tranquilizer. I suspect it's going to take a higher concentration to bring this one down."

"I asked you a question. What tests?" Claire demanded, and began to take a step toward the elderly man. The guard intercepted her quickly, giving her a short but forceful shove back.

The doctor held the glasses to the florescent light in the wall to inspect his lenses, then put them back on his face. "We've been hoping to capture a specimen like you, Ms. Bennett. The applications of your ability to medical science are astounding. We've been able to capture different specimens, but you…you're the one we've wanted for some time. You were always out of our reach, being so protected. Your little stunt on national television is just the permission we were looking for. Thank you."

Claire was sure her heart stopped. She shook her head. "No. No, you can't do this. I won't consent to this."

The machine-like guard actually uttered what sounded like a chuckle in response to this statement. Without another word, the two men exited the room.

Claire pressed her fingers to her temples and knelt down on the floor. She knew now what was going to happen: they were going to cut her open, take her apart, test the limits of her body. She shuddered to think what they'd do when they discovered what her blood could do. She'd become a living pharmaceutical.

But then, what did she hope would happen? That leap she made off of the ferris wheel truly was a leap of faith for her. It was based on her belief that the world could handle the truth – that people deserved to know that something incredible was happening to the world, and together they could change the world for the better.

But that couldn't happen as long as she was in this cell, being treated like an animal. She had to get out.

No sooner had she begun contemplating possible routes of escape, the lights above her head began to flicker furiously. She heard shouts of surprise, then a crackling sound, and bodies being hurled against the wall of her cell.

Standing away from the door in anticipation of a violent break in to the holding room, Claire had to wait only a few seconds before she was greeted by a familiar face.

"Peter!" she cried in relief, jumping into his embrace.

"We don't have much time. Come on," he told her.

Peter led the way down the dark hallway, one hand guiding Claire behind him, the other hand held out to repel any obstacles with his newly acquired telekinesis.

They'd finally come to the end of the hallway, when Peter heard the thunderous footsteps of the approaching guards from the hallway perpendicular to where they were. Pulling Claire backward into the darkness, Peter flattened himself against the wall in preparation of confronting them.

Suddenly there was a blinding light, and the crackling sound of electricity. Peter and Claire winced as they heard the bodies drop with a thud to the ground. Cautiously, Peter emerged from the hallway, pulling Claire with him.

There was a man in the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. He picked his way through the unconscious guards, to where they stood.

Claire gasped when she realized who it was, and tried to pull Peter backward away from him. "Sylar!" she cried.

"It's all right, Claire. He's here to help," Peter told her. He turned to Sylar. "Is it clear?"

Sylar nodded. "For now. Our best exit is the roof. It's this way."

"Right." Peter looked down at the bodies of the guards, some twitching slightly in shock. "They're um…they're going to be okay, right?"

Sylar shrugged. "Pretty sure. Come on."

As they climbed the stairs, Claire waited until she thought there was enough distance between herself and Peter and Sylar to grab her uncle's sleeve and whisper, "What the hell are you doing with him?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but Sylar's trying to change," Peter whispered back. "We…we came to understand each other."

Claire frowned. "Do you trust him?"

Peter looked up at Sylar's dark, retreating form. "So far."

The winding metal stairs finally led to the roof. The gust of cold air that met Claire upon her entry to the outside felt wonderful. She'd only been a prisoner for a few hours, but the fear that she'd never she the outside made her promise herself to never take freedom for granted again.

Sylar took her arm. "Come on. We have to get down before they call – "

"Get the hell off of me!" she snapped, pulling her arm away.

"You're welcome," Sylar replied with his typical sarcasm. He turned from his sour-faced darling and said to Peter, "Take her and get as far away from the city as you can. They're going to riot soon, as mindless mobs typically do."

As if by cue, all three of them jumped as they heard loud crashes coming from the ground below, along with several dozen cries of panic.

Sylar's eyes shifted to the left, in the direction of the door they just exited. "They're coming," he told Peter and Claire. He held his arm out to Peter. "Take what you need. I'll take care of them."

Claire was briefly reminded of the Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel, as she watched Peter's and Sylar's fingers touch and a warm yellow wave begin to flow from the latter to the former. Quickly Peter wrapped his arms around Claire and the two sped off into the sky, leaving a puff of smoke in their wake.

As they flew away, Claire thought of how much things had changed in just one night: the world now knew that she and her kind existed; she'd broken her father's heart; she'd helped to send a madman to prison. And perhaps the most shocking of all: Sylar was trying to be a hero, and Peter had become his ally. Right before Peter climbed into the upper atmosphere, Claire looked down to catch the briefest of glimpses of the tall dark man about to face a serious offensive strike. For a fleeting moment, she feared for him.

* * *

Sylar turned now to the metal door that was bursting open, sending forth nearly a dozen armed guards ready to take him down. They began showering bullets on him, which he halted in mid-air and sent clattering to the ground. They rolled in various directions, and some even got under the feet of the men and sent them flying backwards and onto their asses in a rather humorous fashion.

"Hmm," Sylar said with a smirk. "I could get used to this hero thing."

* * *

It was two-twenty in the morning. Noah Bennett sat in the stiff, musty-smelling stuffed chair that faced his hotel window and listened to the strange symphony of smashing bottles and windows, gunshots, screams, and squealing tires – the very sounds he'd spent nearly twenty years trying to prevent. He swallowed and stroked the 9 milimeter that lay in his lap, vaguely aware of Lauren's voice coming from the other room.

He wasn't thinking about Claire. He wasn't even ready to think of her yet. Instead, he thought of the child he lost, his first child with his first wife. It was too early in the pregnancy to know, especially in those times, but Noah always imagined that the baby had been a boy.

He'd always wanted a son. The one thing he'd wanted to do was to pass along a sense of the need to be gentle. His father, who'd had a long and decorated military career, had put his duty before his family and had no use for those sort of feelings.

It was something Noah had wanted from his father all his life, and when he found out he was going to be a father, he realized that this was the chance he'd been waiting for: the chance to show his son that a man could be strong and loving at the same time.

But then Kate was taken from him, and his child as well. By the time Claire and Lyle came around, Noah was too invested in the Company and protecting the secret that he had no time to teach that feeling of gentleness to either of his children. He'd always known they both felt like they were denied something from him.

Now that Noah could finally find the time to look deep inside himself, he realized that he'd given that part of himself away permanently to his first wife and first child, and he could never give it to someone else.

"Noah?" Lauren's calm voice shook him from his thoughts. He looked up from the window.

"Noah, I spoke to my sources. It looks like Claire escaped from government custody."

"I see," Noah responded, almost in a daze. "How did she do it?"

"Well…the guards on duty reported being attacked by two Caucasian men in their early to mid thirties with dark hair."

"Oh. Must have been Peter and Matt Parkman."

Lauren walked cautiously to the window to view the world that had been pricked awake by knowledge. She winced as she heard a firebomb go off several miles away. "It's really going to be something from now on, won't it?"

Noah didn't answer.

Lauren knelt down on the floor in front of him. "Noah, you need rest. Why don't you go lie down?"

Noah looked at her, but Lauren knew he wasn't really seeing her. "Why?"

"Noah," she said, gently taking the gun from him and pulling him to his feet, "Come on now. I need you to snap out of it. Tomorrow you're going to have to get up, get dressed, eat, shower, and check my wound. Then we'll need to figure out what we're going to do."

Noah was standing now. To Lauren's surprise, he laid his head on her good shoulder. "It's been for nothing, Laurie. All that I've done is for nothing. I couldn't make her see. All I ever had to do…is make her see. And I couldn't do that."

Pressing her cheek against his, Lauren gently walked him to the bed. "You've done more than you'll ever realize. You can't make people do what you want them to do, Noah. You're not God."

Noah chuckled bitterly as he got into the bed, dipping under the hideous floral bedspread. "I know that. How does that song go again? The three men I admire most…took the last train for the coast."

_He sounds drunk_, Lauren thought to herself as she struggled to pull the heavy coverlet over his chest with her good arm. But she knew he wasn't. They'd been together all that evening and night, and he hadn't eaten or drunk anything. He was just drunk with shock and depression, if such a thing were possible.

She looked down at him now, his eyes shut tight against his rimmed glasses, his mouth turned down into a slight frown. She took his glasses off, and he reminded her of a boy who'd been forced to go to sleep when he didn't want to. He'd fallen asleep quickly, his breathing now deep and hard, just bordering on snoring.

Lauren sighed. She was tired too. She wanted to go to bed, but the room they found only had one. The man behind the desk looked so panicked they were lucky to get what they had. She felt that Noah needed it more than she did, and she felt strange about sharing a bed with him. Under other circumstances she'd have welcomed the chance, but she felt she needed his consent too. His baggage was both large and heavy.

She gathered the thin top sheet from the foot of the bed, figuring the stuffed chair would be better than nothing. She turned to go, when she heard a voice behind her say, "Stay with me."

* * *

Considering it for a moment, Lauren finally threw the sheet on the floor, turned out the light, and found her way to the offensive pink, red and green covered bed.

The light shone bright and hard into Noah's eyes. He winced and turned away from it, reaching out his arm to the bare spot on the bed next to him. Realizing the emptiness now, he sat up and looked around, feeling panic set in when he remembered that Lauren was supposed to be with him. Now throwing off the covers, Noah grabbed his glasses off of the night table and shoved his feet into his shoes.

He was just reaching for the door when the knob began to turn, and he jumped back, preparing for a confrontation with whoever was on the other side.

Lauren's beautiful, tired face met him less than a second later. Sighing in relief, he wished her a good morning.

"I wish I could say the same," she said glumly. "I tried to go out to get us some coffee, and I was practically thrown back into the hotel by the police. The streets are a mess. People are up in arms today. They want to know why the girl who survived the 100 foot fall did it."

Noah's face darkened and he turned away, walking to the window. "It's a good question. I'm not sure I'm going to like the answer, though."

"Noah, I'm sure she's safe. She's got…other family."

"Well, I hope they can help her. She's moved past my world; she's in her own now."

"Noah…there's something else," Lauren began, sitting on the bed. "I checked in with my contacts at the FBI, and they gave me some…news…about Samuel Sullivan."

Noah whirled around quickly, starting to feel the predator in himself coming back. "What is it? Did he escape?"

Lauren swallowed. "In a manner of speaking. He committed suicide last night."


	6. Chapter 6

Sato had just pulled himself from the backseat to the driver's seat of his truck after his latest trade. His client left with few parting words, sparing the smallest of smiles as she disappeared into the darkness. He had offered to see her to the tent but she refused – she said she always knew her way.

He'd just started the truck's engine when he could just make out a smashing sound, then a light tinkling as something cracked and fell to the ground. Frowning, he pulled his door open and jumped out, investigating the sound. He hadn't gone two steps when he was knocked clear off his feet by two well-aimed blows to his knees and head.

"Oof!" came the surprised exhale of air as Sato went from vertical to horizontal. His head had barely hit the sand when he felt a strong body straddle him and pin him to the ground. His eyes quickly adjusted to the little light there was, most of it coming from the glint of the knife held to his throat.

"You bastard!" Marina growled, her weight trained upon Sato, her long hair wild about her face, looking like some lean hungry animal. "Where did you thugs take her? Where is she?"

"Who?" Sato barely managed to utter in a strangled voice as the thin blade pressed into his neck. His ignorance earned him more weight placed upon the knife. "Please!" he cried, and to his relief, the pressure was released just slightly. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You know about her, don't you? Somehow you sons of bitches found out about her and they sent you to distract me! They'll know they're messing with the wrong bitch when I bring them your head!" Marina continued her assault, pressing just enough to bring forth a thin red thread from Sato's neck.

Fear and self-preservation kicking in, Sato twisted his hip just enough to unbalance Marina. Her weight on the slightest of angles, he cuffed the hand holding the knife, sending the instrument flying a few inches away. He delivered a strong blow to her chest, giving him time to get out from under her and now take the upper hand by pushing her headfirst into the sand and pressing his weight against her.

Taking a few seconds to catch his breath from the assault, he now tried to control the screaming, twisting body beneath him. "Cereza, calm down. You're crazy."

"Mmmff! Mmggghh!" she bellowed from the sand.

"Cereza, listen! Listen to me! I hate them, do you hear me? I hate all of those men. I'm only with them because…because it's safe. I don't know what happened to your sister, I swear on my family I don't know. But I'll-I'll help you find her."

He released his weight just enough so she could raise her head. "Why should I trust you?" she croaked.

Sato hesitated, then sighed. "I guess you have no reason to believe me. But I am telling you the truth, no matter what you think."

Realizing that her heel was just under his slightly spread thighs, Marina brought her foot up and made contact with Sato's crotch. Savoring briefly his yelp of pain, she rolled out from under him and retrieved her knife, then stood above him as he rolled to his side like a baby.

She could have killed the man lying before her. She could have taken the opportunity to jump into his truck and speed away to the post, to confront the men that she knew took Claire. She knew what she could do and should do, but she didn't. She hesitated. She knew that with every moment she waited, he would recover and she'd have to fight him again. Still, she hesitated.

"You could just be distracting me," she snapped, feeling she had to say something to show him she wasn't being merciful. He rolled to his knees and did not look at her, just stared at the ground.

"Ugh! Why don't you just tell me where they took her?" Marina asked him.

"Why don't you just believe me?" Sato retorted, now on his feet. "She left you."

Marina shook her head, hoping that even in the dark, he'd be able to see her vigorous denial. "No. She'd never do that. She needs me."

Without another word, Sato walked to the tent, ignoring Marina's shouts that he stop. She ran after him, pushing him aside and taking his flashlight from him when he began to push the flap of the tent to peek in.

"I'm telling you, she doesn't know night from day. There's no way…" Marina's self-assurance hit a speedbump when she shined the light into the tent.

In the middle of the tent floor there lay Marina's dinged and dented Microsoft Enlighten, with the faintest of green glows from the screen, meaning a data chip had been inserted and was running. Scrawled in blood under the Enlighten were the words, "Going Home."

It took her several minutes to recover from her surprise, but she finally found her voice again. "Well," Marina said. "I'll be damned."

* * *

"This is crazy, you know that?" Sato complained as he drove them through the plains. His body still ached from her ambush, and he was still angry at her for smashing his brakelights. But this strange woman fascinated him. She could be brutal and yet full of heart at the same time.

They were driving North, to Port of Spain, where Sato had a contact that could get them on a ship by the next day. When he saw the amount of blood required to write that note in the tent, he was convinced Claire couldn't have gone far. But Marina had insisted she could get quite far on foot when she wanted to – that she had been quite an athlete – and that she needed to heed Claire's note and leave the island.

"Then just drop me off right here, if you don't want to waste your time," Marina replied. "Go back to your post. But I'm going to America."

Sato rolled his eyes. "Let us forget for a moment that most of the United States is a solid block of ice," Sato reasoned. "There is still the government to deal with. You can't shit without them looking up your asshole!"

"You think I don't know that?" Marina retorted. "I grew up there. I was lucky to get out in one piece. But if that's where my…sister is going, then that's where I have to go too."

Sato sighed. "Fine. How are you going to find her once you get there? I don't have to tell you it's a big country."

Marina looked down at the battered tablet in her hands. "There's a file on here. Claire wanted me to read it. I think it's going to tell me where she's going. But this thing is really old…most of the characters look like junk." She squinted at the blurry screen.

"Switch to voice. It'll use less energy pack power that way."

Marina followed his advice, and they were met with a shrill, mechanical voice that set both their sets of teeth on edge. Sato suggested that Marina give the Enlighten a sample of her voice to use as the avatar, which she did with no more convincing needed. Marina began to listen to it, eager for some sort of clue. Then suddenly she shut it off when she realized where she was.

"What's wrong?" Sato asked her.

"It's, um…it's just…there might be things on here that only I'm supposed to hear. It's nothing personal, I just…well, I don't really trust people." Marina looked out the window in embarrassment, knowing full well that there was nothing to see in the darkness. She was completely unprepared for something like this. She'd never had to rely on someone else. Her life was built around Claire, and now that the old woman was gone, Marina felt lost for the first time.

The truck slowed down gradually, then came to a stop. Sato shifted the truck to "park" and reached for his gloves in the seat behind them.

"Why did you stop?" Marina asked, confused.

Sato looked at her. "My contact is up that hill, about two miles away. I'm going to walk the rest of the way. The sun will be up soon. You stay here and listen to the file. You'll have the truck all to yourself, you won't have to worry about me hearing anything."

"Sato, listen, about what I said, I-"

"It takes time, I know that. But I'm leaving you with my truck and all of my supplies, and I'm trusting that you won't steal everything I have and leave me stranded. I hope that means something to you."

Without waiting for a reply, Sato got out and slammed the door behind him. Marina watched through the glare of headlights as his outline got smaller and darker as he walked away. She stared down at the thin grey box in her hands. She felt her heartbeat strain against her chest as she thought of Claire out there, alone, in the dark. Marina had always assumed that her great-grandmother's story had faded with whatever sanity she'd had left. Now she was about to throw open the door to an old world and an old life.

Finally she held it up to her face and said, "Play." She sat back in her seat and began to listen to a century-old story, told in her voice.

"_Claire Bennett's impromptu plummet from a ferris wheel changed everything, for everyone. What was known and accepted was rewritten in one night. _

_678,953 people were injured, maimed, or killed in the 3 day aftermath of the revelation, later termed the "Jumper Riots" by the history books. It was a nationwide panic reaction to the video of a 19 year old girl surviving a 200-foot fall without a scratch. People naturally thought it was the end of the world…"_

_

* * *

_

Port of Spain in 2148 looked quite similar to New Mexico in 1848. It was dry and dusty, with very little to look at that would be pleasing to the eye. It was cold, like all of the world, but for those who'd grown up after the crisis, they never knew the difference.

Idar Sanders knew the difference. Being well into his eighties, he remembered how warm the world used to be. The slow, creeping cold made his rheumatism nearly unbearable. He spent the remainder of his days lying on his cot wrapped in blankets on the dock, where his grandson adequately ran his sea trading company. Often he had to go without any medicine, depending on how well business was for the season. He liked to talk about the old days – it helped his pain to talk, somehow – but his grandson and the young people that worked for him had little patience for his stories, as they found them to be no helpful in navigating life in the here and now.

This morning was a good one for him, however. They were few and far between, with the gap growing wider every day, but Idar was grateful for them when they did occur. Today he actually had the strength to sit in his old leather chair and repair the fishing nets damaged during the last storm their old fishing trawl, _The Obama_, had encountered.

In and out the needle worked its way through the twine. Idar was proud of himself; his fingers hadn't failed him and he hadn't dropped his needle even once. Just as he had that thought, however, his fingers lost their grip and he just barely heard the tiny _plunk_ of the needle hitting the ground.

Idar sucked his teeth in annoyance and was about to expend far too much energy in retrieving the needle, when he heard hoots and hollers coming from up the dock.

Idar squinted, and made out a petite blonde marching determinedly down the road in his direction, her hands gesturing wildly as she went. There were at least five men ogling her as she walked past – she was young, nubile, and by all appearances, healthy. Any one of them would have snatched her up and dragged her to a dark corner easily, but they were all probably put off by her loud muttering to herself and her "loco eyes."

Idar straightened himself in his chair as the girl approached him. He had no choice but to smile when he realized who it was.

"Well, now," he said as she stood before him. "Ain't this a surprise."

She smiled shyly. "Hello, Idar. You're looking lovely."

Idar laughed. "What they say is true: the crazy ones are always the sweetest. Thank you, Claire darlin'. Where's that granddaughter of yours?"

Claire looked down. "I left her. She has no faith. But she will – after she makes her journey."

"I see. So why are you here?"

"I need to go home. I see you have boats. Can I borrow one?"

"No."

"Oh," Claire was disappointed. "I wish I had your Aunty Tracy's ability. You know she once turned herself into an upside down waterfall and carried me through a dirt wall? I was surprisingly clean when I came out, through I was soaked right through my undies."

Idar shook his head. It was surreal to hear this deceptively young woman talking about a woman who had died thirty years before he'd been born. Of course, for Claire, everything had happened just yesterday.

"Still not playing with a full deck, huh Bennett?" Idar asked teasingly.

"No," Claire admitted, staring into her open palms. She could feel tears beginning to prick at her eyes. "But I kept my Ace and my King."

"Huh?"

"Oh! Sorry!" she said. "The sky made me say that. So if I can't have a boat, can I ride along when you go to America? I'd swim, but the water looks too…solid."

"What's going on here?" a tall, muscular man said as he approached them.

"Seer, this is an old friend of mine, Claire Bennett," Idar told him. Claire, this is my grandson. He runs the trading company. If you want passage, you'll need to ask him."

Claire smiled widely. "Your hair is even longer than mine," she told him, leaning forward to admire his black, wavy ponytail. "I need to get to Florida. Will you take me?"

Seer narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "We're leaving in an hour to deliver a shipment. I've already wired my ship complement. The port authorities won't accept my goods if we have an extra passenger."

"Please," Claire begged. "I'm willing to pay you."

Seer scoffed. "Pay with what? You don't even have any pants on!" He was surprised the girl could tolerate the cold air running up her legs and through her nether regions.

Claire looked at Idar pleadingly. The old man finally sighed and began to pull himself out of his chair with great effort. "Listen, boy," Idar told Seer. "I don't usually exert my seniority, but this time I am. Like I said, Claire is an old friend, and she needs my help. In fact, if it weren't for her saving me long ago, you'd never have been born. So you owe her too."

Seer's brow furrowed in confusion. "_She_ saved _you_ long ago? She can't be more than eighteen."

"She's been eighteen for over one hundred years," Idar countered with a laugh, then lowered his voice. "Do you remember when I told you about the Jumper Movement that happened decades ago?"

"Granpa, that's just a legend."

"Oh no, it's not. And Claire can pay us with something very valuable." Idar's mouth nearly watered as he imagined the miraculous red liquid, more precious than gold, that flowed through Claire's veins.

"Even so," Seer argued. "You know how what the government there is like. They'll refuse our shipment if we have a living passenger with us."

Idar smiled as he got an idea. "That won't be a problem," he said, smiling at Claire.

* * *

"That is disgusting," Seer said as he watched his grandfather consuming the red frothy drink he'd made. They were sitting in the cabin, sailing to the Port of Florida.

"Hmm, I can see why you'd think that," Idar replied, as he downed the last drop. "But it's a miracle tonic. My rheumatism is gone, my hearing and vision have gotten better. My skin's just a little firmer. And my sex drive has returned. I hope they still have good whorehouses in Miami!"

Seer rolled his eyes and suppressed his gag reflex. It was bad enough watching his grandfather cut the blonde haired girl open and collect cups of her blood – now the image of his grandfather being straddled by some hairy hooker with a sore on her lip stuck in his mind. He had to admit, he was fascinated by watching Claire's flesh knit itself back together after being cut open. A commodity like that would make him a good deal of money. He just had to find some way of getting her through customs and to his contacts in D.C. without his grandfather knowing. And what he didn't know, wouldn't hurt him, after all.

Seer was pulled out of his private thoughts with the sound of Idar's boot striking the wooden planks beneath them. "Well, she's all safe down below. And my debt is paid, thank God."

"Granpa," Seer asked quietly, leaning towards him, "What's wrong with her? She can heal her body, but her mind…"

"…is gone," Idar finished the sentence. "Or, at least, lost, for now. Oh, it's her demons, boy. That woman has suffered more than you can imagine. I tried to help her when I was still a doctor, but I couldn't take away her pain."

"So why does she need to go to the U.S.? What's there?"

Idar shrugged and began to pour himself another cup of his blood-drink. "Peace, perhaps? I'm sure she'll know it when she sees it."

* * *

As Seer's ship sailed out of the harbor, the morning sun lighting it up like a star, a tall, red-haired man stood on the shore, perfectly still, like a statue. The locals stared at the strange man, some toying with the idea of going up to him to see if he was all right. There was something about him, however, that was menacing, as if evil itself lived under his skin. No one dared approach.

Finally, the man began to walk toward the water, marching straight and strong like a soldier. He paid no attention to the exclamations of alarm behind him. The icy water enfolded him like a lover's embrace as he plunged deeper and deeper, until his fiery head disappeared beneath the surface.

And still he kept walking, stalking the cargo ship that carried Claire Bennett.


	7. Chapter 7

"Now remember to make your movements light on the canvas, since we're using the wet technique…that's it. Your clouds are lovely, dear."

Angela stood over Claire's shoulder as she dotted her midnight sky with wisps of grey, allowing just a glimmer of her yellowy moon to peak out. This was just her granddaughter's third day of painting, but Angela could see the girl had talent. She wanted to cultivate it, to nurture it so that Claire could see that there was more to life than this tired crusade to save humanity. Angela could easily make sure that Claire studied in any of the finest universities around the world.

Unfortunately, Claire didn't have the passion for art. She finished her last streaks of clouds, sighed, and put down the brush.

"Pick up your brush," Angela told her firmly. "You aren't done."

Claire turned around in her seat and looked at her grandmother with defiant eyes. "How much longer are we going to hide out like this? When are we going to stop sitting here while people get hurt and do something?"

They'd been staying at Angela's vacation house in Albany for over a week now, waiting out the backlash following Claire's stunt in Central Park. For the first few days, Angela and Peter had been able to convince Claire to hide out from the world, at least until the riots had ended. But the young girl was getting restless and impatient, and they feared she would do something foolish again if they couldn't keep her under control.

"Claire. A vast majority of those people you're thinking of are crying out for your head. They'll rip you apart if you go out there."

"But I started this. How can I just stand by and not be a part of it?"

"Because this isn't _your_ revolution, or _mine_, or any one person's. It's all of ours. You lit the fire; you have to let it burn."

Claire slumped forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her thighs as she rubbed her temples. Angela laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Just paint for a little while longer today, dear. You have to do something to relieve your stress. I'll let you be for now." Angela turned to leave, and realized Sylar had been standing in the doorway.

Angela froze, her hand automatically coming to her heart. She swallowed, controlled herself. "Sylar," she greeted him.

"Angela," Sylar returned. "May I come in?"

"Of course." Angela turned back to her granddaughter, who had picked up her brush and had resumed her painting in almost a mindless, mechanical manner.

She was reluctant to leave Claire alone with Sylar, but she couldn't let him sense her fear. She had to believe that Peter's growing friendship with the man who'd killed her son would keep him under control. "I'll be upstairs," Angela announced, in a slightly louder voice than was necessary, as she left the room.

Sylar approached Claire softly, as though he were coming into the room of a sleeping baby, even though he knew she was fully aware of his presence. She hadn't acknowledged him yet. She dipped her brush into the paints, allowing the colors to swirl together, then ran it over the canvas in a free, almost haphazard way.

"I brought you a book I thought you'd like." Sylar laid it down on the table behind her. "_Portnoy's Complaint_. I read it in high school, thought it was funny…" he trailed off, feeling miserable.

Claire gave the book the briefest of glances before returning to her painting. "Thank you," she told him simply.

Sylar tried again. "Emma offered to make dinner tonight. Is there anything you'd like?"

"I'm not very hungry, someone else can decide. I'm sure it will be fine," Claire replied, finishing her clouds.

He knew he wasn't going to get anything else out of her. Ever since they'd come to the hideout, Claire had been tractable, even polite, but elusive. Only Peter, who wanted him keep an eye on him, and Emma, who had no idea about the things he'd done, had kept him company. Angela had been cold to him, but that didn't bother Sylar. After the things she'd done to him, her feelings mattered very little. Claire, however, was a different story.

Sylar had kept his distance at first, knowing that his presence upset her. But he couldn't stay away forever, and she had to know that. So he'd begun to turn away to leave, but he willed himself to stay and try again to reach her.

"Claire," he began. "Claire, would it help if I began by saying I'm sorry?"

"For what?" she asked, her eyes still trained to the canvas.

Sylar rolled his eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."

Claire put down her brush and deigned to look at him. "No, I don't. Are you referring to what you've done to _me_, or to_ Peter_, or to my _grandmother_, or to the countless other people you've hurt? Are you referring to all of us? Because if you are, 'sorry' is a pathetic place to begin."

She chuckled now as she dipped her paint into crimson red and began to outline the branches of a tree. "Now that I think about it, 'sorry' fits you just fine."

Before he could control himself, Sylar pointed his finger at her canvas and sent it flying across the room, and it smacked against the wall with such force it cracked in two. Claire was so startled she dropped her brush, staining her hands and legs.

He stood over her now, his eyes burning with anger. "I'm doing the best that I can! I don't expect things to change overnight, but I have to start somewhere! Doesn't my saving you and Emma prove that I'm not the same person I was? Why can't you at least acknowledge that?"

Claire defiantly returned his gaze. "I thanked you for doing that, didn't I? I've been civil to you. I listened when you and Peter told me to stay here. I haven't tried to ruin your friendships with Peter and Emma. You can't ask more of me."

Sylar turned away in frustration, more from the lack of words to argue instead of what Claire actually said to him. Finally he turned back to Claire, who had remained sitting on her stool with quiet control.

"Claire…I can live with lots of people hating me. The reason I can is because I know that eventually all those people are going to be gone, and I'm going to remain, living with my guilt. But one day…it's just going to be you and I that are left. One day…everyone we love is going to leave us."

He knelt down in front of her now, being careful not to touch her. "Claire, I know you've thought about this, even if you don't want to admit it. It's hard to imagine a hundred years, or fifty, or even ten years from now. But that's what you and I have – eternity. We have to start somewhere in building a relationship."

Claire looked down at her knees, at her thin satin sky-blue skirt, stained blood red. She looked at Sylar with weary eyes. "Where do you want to start, Sylar?" she asked, holding up her hands in helplessness. "Do you want me to start with how much I miss Nathan? Or the suffocating rage I feel every time I look at you? Do you want to start with the fact that I still have nightmares about what you did to me? Where _do_ we start?" She sighed in frustration and got off of the stool, walking away.

Sylar held up his hand, ready to use his power to freeze her in her tracks. This time he was able to stop himself, realizing in time that it would only make things worse. He watched her leave.

* * *

Peter was buttoning the long, leather coat Sylar had gotten for him and was getting ready to leave. He walked over to the den, where Emma was watching the news. There were media experts who were now claiming that Claire's jump from the ferris wheel was a hoax, since authorities had been unable to locate her since it was first broadcast. Another segment reported that sites like YouTube were now packed with clips from others with abilities following Claire's example and showing off their skills. Many of them, however, were clearly staged.

All regular programming – sitcoms, talk shows, sports games – all had been canceled for continuous discussion of these new abilities that had been discovered. The media was simply not going to let go of the story, any time soon.

Peter laid a hand on Emma's shoulder to get her attention. She turned around in surprise. "Oh! Peter! I was just going to start dinner. Where are you going?"

"Meeting with Hesam. I want to see if he can get us some medical supplies. I'll be back in time for dinner." He leaned over the sofa and kissed her forehead.

"Peter…" Emma called out. She had finally worked up the courage to ask when they would be able to stop hiding and let their loved ones know they were all right.

"Yes?"

"I, uh…tell Hesam I said hello."

Peter smiled, knowing that that wasn't what Emma was going to ask. "I'll do that."

Emma turned away. "Thanks," she replied, the disappointment quite evident in her voice.

Peter passed the living room as he left, catching Claire sitting by the bay windows out of the corner of his eye. Even though he was in a rush, he still felt he needed to check on her. He came up to her, sitting on the floor next to the window seat. He held up his hand to her, and she took it, holding it to her heart.

"Sylar tried to talk to you," Peter told, not asked, her.

A sniffle was his reply.

"He's not going to go back to his old ways. I'll make sure of that. It's different now."

Claire exhaled deeply and wiped away a tear. "It's not that – not _only_ that. He's asked for my forgiveness. And I can't do it."

Peter pulled Claire's hand to him now, kissing her fingers. "No one's asking you to forgive him overnight. I can't say it was luck, but it was an…advantage, in some ways, that the dream world Sylar and I were trapped in seemed like years. We had time to come to understand each other, and when we finally got out, the world was still the way we left it. He knows it's not going to work that way with you."

She shook her head. "I want to be able to forgive – I'm tired of carrying this with me all the time – but…" she trailed off.

"But you feel like you'd be betraying Nathan if you forgave Sylar," Peter finished for her.

She nodded, new tears forming. "Didn't you feel that way?"

Peter got off the floor and sat next to Claire, pulling her to him. "Yes. That's why I was trapped with Sylar in that nightmare for so long. I felt like forgiving him would make me weak somehow, that I was letting him get away with something."

"So how did you do it?"

Peter smiled. "I realized that it was the only way I was ever going to be free, and it's the same in your case. Look, you loved Nathan, and he loved you. That's not going to change, whether you forgive Sylar or not." Peter now got up to leave.

"Peter?" Claire asked. "One more thing. I thought that, well, that my dad would try to find me by now. If he contacted you, you'd tell me, right?"

Peter smiled and gently wiped a tear away from her cheek. "You know I would. Look, Emma's going to need help making dinner. Why don't you lend a hand? It'll take your mind off of everything."

Claire managed a smile and left to join Emma in the kitchen. Peter walked to the front door, and looking around to make sure no one else was looking for him, left the house.

* * *

The evening brought a chilly wind that swept mercilessly through Lincoln Park. Peter pulled his coat a little closer to him and walked briskly to the bench where he had been instructed to wait. He sat down on the sad grey little seat and sharply watched the scene. It was surprisingly quiet, considering the turmoil that the country had been in for the past week. Then again, people were probably terrified to leave their homes, believing that flying men and women who could make blizzards out of thin air would come and get them. It was just as well; Peter didn't want any audiences during his meeting.

"I always loved this park," a voice said from the shadows. Peter stood up when he heard this, and shook hands with Noah once he appeared in the light of the streetlamp.

The older man eyed Peter closely. "No one followed you; you made sure of that?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Peter replied, thinking now that for all he knew, Sylar was waiting somewhere in the darkness, listening to the entire conversation. Peter hadn't told Noah that Sylar was the one who'd rescued Claire, and that he was now spending time guarding her at Angela's home. He knew that if he did, he'd be guaranteeing the speedy reunion that Claire was hoping for, but at the cost of Sylar's rehabilitation. Noah's blind hatred of Sylar would surely send the latter into relapse.

Peter hated lying, and he was lying to nearly everyone he cared about. He was lying to Claire and Angela about his contact with Noah; he was lying to Noah about Sylar's proximity to Claire; he was lying to Emma about who Sylar really was. The only person, ironically, that Peter had completely confided in was Sylar. Peter had done this because he knew that being lied to was the one thing that could ruin Sylar's redemption. Peter couldn't risk losing such a powerful ally – not when there was so much at stake.

So Peter managed an easy smile and turned the subject to conversation to Claire. "She asked about you today; she misses you."

Noah's face lit up for the briefest of moments before it turned cold and dispassionate once more. "I didn't come here to talk about Claire; I came to tell you that we're almost ready on our end. Between Lauren and me, we've been able to track down the Haitian and at least three others that have his ability. We've also found three empaths that can absorb the ability, one who can transfer powers from one person to another, and two illusionists. Add you in there, and we should be able to fix this entire mess."

Peter nodded. "So where you do need me?"

"You, Rene, and one of the illusionists will handle all the locations in this country. We'll meet in DC tomorrow night to distribute the locations. Here's the address and time."

Peter glanced at the slip of paper briefly, then slipped it into his breast pocket. "Are you sure this is going to work?"

Noah laid a reassuring hand on Peter's shoulder. "I'm sure. It's a massive project, but we can do this. Once every news station, every leader at the local, state and national level, denounces the video of Claire jumping from the wheel as a fake, things will go back to normal."

Peter looked away in apprehension. "What are we going to tell Claire?"

Noah smiled. "You'll still have Rene's power. You can…ease her mind." With that, Noah patted Peter's shoulder and walked away into the night.

Peter pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and looked at it again. He held the piece of paper between his fingers, ready to tear it into dozens of little pieces and throw them up into the air like snow. A part of him was screaming for it to be done.

But he didn't do it. Instead he folded the paper neatly, and placed it safely in its hiding place in his pocket. Peter turned and began his trip back to his mother's house, never feeling more like a traitor than he did in that very moment.


	8. Chapter 8

As she sat crammed in the belly of the prison ship bound for Florida, the right side of her face warm and throbbing from where Sato struck her, Marina was surprised to find her thoughts turning to her mother.

Sara Cereza, nee Chatworth, had occupied such a small part of her daughter's life that Marina rarely thought of her. Consistently frail from her life-long battle with Diehl's Disease, Sara had left most of her daughter's upbringing to Marina's grandmother. As a result, Marina had only a few images of Sara that glimmered in her memory.

Marina remembered her mother's neck and breast first; she would lay her head upon the flawless white flesh, like porcelain. This memory was indelibly mixed with the soft, whispy scent of rose talc that Sara wore. Marina remembered the clear blue eyes; remembers gently tugging on the dirty blond locks that tumbled down her mother's shoulders.

Marina recalled, with fair clarity, seeing her mother lying in the hyperbaric chamber in the afternoons, the machine breathing for her. Sara Chatworth was a high-functioning sufferer of Diehl's, but the lesions that ravaged her internal organs left her for the most part unable to work or to care for her child. Marina would see her father coming home in the afternoons, and leaning over the chamber to look in at his sleeping wife. To Marina, it was like watching Prince Charming coming to rescue Sleeping Beauty – and all he'd have to do is kiss her and she'd wake up and live happily ever after.

As Marina grew older, she would often wonder why Claire couldn't heal Sara with her blood. When she was 18 and living in Brazil, she visited a data house and found out why: the scientists who had engineered the plague had designed it to be resistant to the enzymes in Claire's DNA.

One memory was particularly strong for Marina. She couldn't remember why, but Sara had brought her out to the backyard. It was one of Sara's good days, and the weather was mild enough that she could breathe on her own for a reasonable amount of time. Sara sat on the dewy dark grass with Marina in her lap, and it started to drizzle very lightly. The fog and the haze made everything in the garden look like a washed out oil painting. Marina felt Sara tremble as she held her tightly in her slender, rope-veined arms. She seemed to recall her mother saying-

"Hello! Bitch! I'm talkin' to yous!" one of Marina's fellow prisoners shouted at her, forcing her out of her reverie. Marina shut her eyes in exasperation, hoping the little man, whose name she had learned was Armis, would go away.

"Hey! I wanna know why you're here. An' you better tell me, or I'm gonna rip you open. Ya want me to do that?" Armis threated her.

Marina knew why he was doing it. He was a small, pale man, and probably had been frequently bullied and raped by other convicts – maybe even some of the others on that very ship. Now that there was a woman on the ship – an unusual occurrence for this particular vessel and course – he finally had a chance to dominate someone else, someone smaller and weaker than him.

He was having fun at her expense, and was finally getting a few hoots and calls from the other prisoners. Marina endured several minutes of his taunts without any reaction, but when he poked her in the shoulder, she'd had enough. Like lightning she grabbed the finger that had poked her and twisted it, bringing Armis to his knees with a cry.

Marina gracefully got up from her seat on the long bench and slammed the little man's balding head into the wood. He, like others before him, had seriously underestimated her strength and was now flapping around helplessly like a fish out of water.

She leaned down to speak gently into his ear as he struggled. "I don't really feel like talking about myself, but I can say something about you. If I apply any more pressure to your finger, it's going to snap in two like a twig. Would you like me to do that?"

"Uh-uh! Uh-uh!" Armis whined. The others on the deck cheered in delight. One of the other prisoners sitting nearby, an enormous African with ferocious white teeth, laughed like a child on Christmas morning.

"Are you going to shut your little bitch mouth and leave us all in peace?"

"Y-huuuhh! Y-huuh!"

"I can't understand you!"

"I s-said, y-yes!"

Without another word, Marina released him and returned to her seat on the bench. She shut her eyes again, trying to drown out the chorus of taunts coming from the other prisoners as Armis returned to his own seat, humiliated.

She hoped she wouldn't have to do something like that again. There were no guards to neutralize any fights that might erupt on the lower decks. The above-board explanation was that staff resources were low, but Marina suspected that the government hoped that tempers would flare in such cramped quarters and the prisoners would thin out the herds themselves. Marina's fingers itched for her kitchen knife, which Sato had taken from her.

Marina exhaled and tried to put herself back into the memory she'd been enjoying just a few minutes ago – trying to remember the warm drizzle of the rain and the feathery tendrils of grass that tickled her five year old feet. But it was no use. The memory had blown away from her, for the moment.

Another memory had crept up now. It was so faint and distant, that Marina actually squinted to try to capture it. She remembered sitting on the hardwood floor of her grandmother's house, playing with some sort of doll. It was afternoon, because everything looked like it was glazed in gold. Her father, grandmother, and Claire were all sitting one room away. Marina didn't know exactly what they were saying, but she could tell they were arguing.

Marina remembers moving a little closer to the room, trying to stay out of their line of sight so that they wouldn't stop talking. But they were all so occupied that it was no problem to spy on them.

Marina's father was arguing with his mother. "She's too young, I'm telling you! I'm not letting you turn her into a heartless mercenary!"

"Tom, there is a war coming, and we are not going to be around forever to protect her! I need to start training her early – before I'm too old to do it!" Marina's grandmother, Roselyn, argued back.

"Tommy, listen to your mother," Claire said, in an old-sounding voice. It was one of her all-too-brief and all-too-rare moments of lucidity that came and went like an eclipse. "The world is a cruel place. Mari needs to learn how to survive it."

Marina couldn't remember what else was said, but she knew that the fighting went on for quite a while. What seemed like a few days later, however, Roselyn started teaching Marina simple defensive maneuvers and wilderness survival. She still remembered what it felt like to finish a day of training with her grandmother and look out across the field and see her father framed in the doorway, a dark look of resentment staining his features.

Sara Cereza died in March of 2126 – four months before the Crisis hit the Earth. Afterward Roselyn Bennett didn't talk to her granddaughter about her mother. Tom Cereza had emotionally removed himself from his family. Claire Bennett was too enmeshed in her own world to care. Somehow, however, Marina knew that it had been Sara who had convinced her husband to let her mother-in-law take care of their daughter. She'd held on long enough to give Marina that memory in the grass – that one shining moment of contentment in her otherwise bleak existence.

Four hours more to Florida.

* * *

_The Obama_ had finally reached port, and was now being scrutinized at practically the molecular level. Knowing that the red wooden crate and its dubious contents would be the immediate target of search and seizure, Seer Sanders made no attempt to hide it. He openly declared it, holding his arms behind his back in a show of honor.

The squat, fat customs official squinted at him through the folds of fat under his eyes. "Why are you carrying a dead body, Señor Sanders?"

"We fished the girl out of the waters in the Keys, Sir," Seer began. "She had no identification, but judging by the blond hair and pale skin, we had to assume she was American. We decided to bring her here for identification and burial."

"Hmph," the official grunted. "There is no reward for recovering human remains. I hope you are aware of that. Why didn't you declare the body in your arriving communication with the Florida Port?"

Seer darted his eyes to the side, thinking quickly. "My grandfather, sir," he finally said. "He's…beginning to get a bit senile in his old age. I didn't want to upset him, so I had my men take the body to the belly of the ship as soon as it was recovered. This trade used to be his, so he insists on monitoring every communication. I…didn't mention the discovery for fear of upsetting him with it."

The officer squinted at Seer so hard that his eyes seemed to disappear into his face. "I'll dismiss this with a warning this time. If something like this happens again…you're looking at suspension from the trade cooperative."

Seer nodded deferentially and waited to be dismissed. Ten minutes later the paperwork was complete and filed and he was free to go. Seer made his way through the scanners and the decontamination centers, finally reuniting with his grandfather, who'd been waiting for him.

Idar laid his hands on his grandson's shoulders and smiled. "Where's Claire?"

Seer frowned, feeling guilty. "She'll be fine." He quickly changed the subject. "Where's the crew?"

"Off to Miami to get laid. You thought they'd wait for you?"

Seer cursed his lazy band of idiots. He had hoped that he could leave Idar with at least one of them while he figured out how to get Claire to D.C. Now he'd have to find some other way into the holding station before they tried to dispose of her remains.

"Señor Sanders!" a voice cried from behind them. Seer cursed under his breath and turned to see a young customs officer walking toward him with a tablet.

"I have a few questions about your cargo, Señor," the officer said grimly. "Will you come with me, please?"

"Is this really necessary?" Idar said, stepping protectively in front of Seer. "My grandson has always followed the proper procedure. Why just check any of our past records-"

"Past history means nothing when it comes to national security, Señores," the officer interrupted. "I would rather make this interview as quick and pleasant as possible. But, if you would prefer…"

"No, it's no trouble officer," Seer said, waving his hand dismissively. "If the government wants to waste their time interrogating honest traders, that's their prerogative."

The officer stared coldly at Seer, who stared back with equal antipathy. "Follow me, please," the officer finally said, walking briskly to the internal offices with Seer in tow.

The two men made their way through a seemingly endless maze of corridors, going deeper and deeper into the administrative offices before arriving at a windowless, white office. Seer imagined the government did this to utterly confuse any suspects so that escape would seem less practical.

The customs officer shut the door behind them and double locked it before pushing Seer to the far wall and kissing him passionately.

"Michel," Seer uttered breathlessly, running his fingers through the other man's luxurious brown locks.

"Oh Querido," Michel countered. "¿Dónde has estado? He estado esperando tanto tiempo." He began unbuttoning Seer's stiff grey jacket, pressing a kiss to each inch of flesh as it was exposed.

Seer smiled as he ran his hands down Michel's back. This was an incredible opportunity he was given. He'd almost forgotten about this excellent connection he had. Now, he just had to play it right.

"Amante, lo siento – mucho. But I need your help, please."

Michel looked at him with concern. "What is it, Querido? Are you in trouble?"

Seer kissed him in assurance. "Of course not. I'm an honest trader, remember? No, it's that red crate I brought in. I need you to help me get it out of holding and onto a carrier."

"A carrier? Estas loco, yo se. There's no way I can get anything on a carrier for you."

Seer smiled and pulled Michel against him, running his fingers lightly against his stomach. "Yes, you can. You've done it before. Por favor, I need your help."

Michel shook his head. He knew Seer was using him, and he didn't mind. He had wasted a good part of his youth pining for the handsome, elusive trader, and his mother and sister never missed an opportunity to remind him of that. But he didn't care. No one else could make him feel the way Seer did. Even if he'd never get a promise from him, even if he had lovers all around the world – Michel would always belong to Seer.

That didn't mean, however, that he was just going to do whatever Seer asked. He'd been promoted to official, and he didn't want to jeopardize that, even for the best lover he'd ever had. "You ask for too much, Seer," he said, his voice hoarse with desire as his lover cupped and squeezed his buttocks.

Seer pushed Michel against the wall, bringing his hand from the back to the front of the officer's pants. He pressed his palm against the hardening shaft and ground his own eager erection against Michel's. "Amante, it's a lot of money we're talking about. Enough money that I can finally get out of my grandfather's business and settle down. Enough money…that we can finally start a life together."

Those were the magic words. Michel wrapped his arms around Seer's neck and asked what he needed to do. Seer slipped the tablet out of Michel's pocket and programmed in the coordinates for his contact in D.C.

"Just get the crate delivered to this location. Mark it 'explosive' or 'volatile' or whatever it takes so that the driver doesn't peek inside. I'll be there to pick it up. Once I make the deal, I'll come back down here for you."

"You had better. I'm keeping the coordinates after I send the crate. I can have the entire U.S. government after you."

_You could, but you won't_, Seer thought to himself as he kissed his lover goodbye. _Hope makes fools of all of us._

Seer was already imagining the gorgeous Georgian mansion he'd buy in St. Thomas after he'd negotiated the deal for Claire's body. His mouth watered when he imagined the ¼ mile long heated pool and the half-naked, bronzed serving boys he'd have with it. He was so entranced by his thoughts he just barely made out the annoyed tone in Michel's voice coming from far behind him as he asked for identification from someone who was trying to enter the office unannounced. Seer rejoined his grandfather in the mezzanine, now realizing that it started to snow heavily after seeing it through the enormous glass windows.

Idar shuffled up to him with a nervous look. "Is everything all right?" he asked. "Did they find Claire? Are we in trouble?"

"Everything's fine, Granpa. The customs officer was just investigating another trader who was suspected to be bartering with stolen goods. He wanted to know if we'd had any contact with him."

"Oh. What about Claire? What's going to happen to her?"

"She'll be fine," Seer said, now feeling a bit annoyed. "I'm having the crate shipped to my contact in North Carolina. We'll meet up with him and free her. It's all taken care of."

"Well, good," Idar said with a smile. "She has something very important to take care of. I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling she knows how to heal our world. We have to put our faith in her."

"Of course, Granpa," Seer replied absently, too busy thinking of the warm blue waters of his pool to listen.

* * *

Michel looked down at the body of the young girl in the red crate. Her lifeless, cloudy blue eyes stared up at him. He pulled back her blond hair, feeling around on the left side of her scalp. Finally, his fingers touched something thin and sharp protruding from the skin. He grasped it in his hand, pulling slowly but firmly, little by little.

Finally, the bloody stick was removed from the girl's skull and her eyes regained their natural color. She gasped her breath, coughing raggedly as her lungs took in the air frantically. Her heart began its rhythmic pumping, and the flush of blood returned to her skin.

Claire sat up in her coffin, looking around at her new surroundings. "This isn't a boat," she commented to the officer who'd freed her.

He looked at her with ice cold eyes. "No. It's not."

"Am I home?"

"Yes."

"Where do I go now?"

"That's up to you."

She extended her arms to him like a child. "Take me out?"

Michel lifted her from the box and placed her on the ground. With his eyes he indicated the door. "There is a carrier leaving now. Get on it."

Claire inhaled. "You smell like death and ash. What have you done?"

Michel picked up the bloody stick. "Get your ass on that truck, or I'll put this back where I found it."

She frowned as she walked to the door. She stopped and looked back at the customs officer. He felt so familiar to her. The voices were screaming something to her, but she couldn't make out what it was. "Why are you helping me?"

His smile was awkward on his face, as if he weren't used to using those muscles and it was painful. "Because I'm a nice guy," he told her.

Claire pushed the door open and was greeted with a gust of bitter wind and snow. She pushed her way into the winter air, leaving her rescuer behind.

She knew where she needed to be. All she could do was hope that Marina would survive long enough to find her.


	9. Chapter 9

Dying is like the ocean, he discovered. Even as you lose yourself, you find yourself again.

* * *

While no one would deny the disadvantage of being deaf, there were certain advantages too. When someone loses one sense, others compensate for it. In the case of hearing loss, visual acuity, and the ability to read subtle behavioral cues, become heightened. Emma knew this well, and called it to mind as she sat at dinner with Peter, his mother, Claire, and Sylar.

She could feel the tension was high, amongst all of them. She knew that if she asked it would seem foolish, after the events of the last few days; using it as an excuse was the easy thing to do. But Emma knew there was more going on, more than Peter would admit to.

She saw the way Peter's mother, Angela, held herself. This was a woman who held her emotions close to her, who exuded iciness not only as a shield, but as a way of life. The way she held her glass – her knuckles pointing outward – Emma knew she was angry about something. Angela's eyes never drifted to the left of her – the side that Sylar was seated on. Angela held some animosity toward the dark-haired man.

Claire was holding something in herself as well. Her chair was backed away ever so slightly, her shoulders were pulled back just enough that Emma knew that she didn't want to be there. She looked like a bird desperately trying to spread her wings and fly way.

Peter's eyes hardly moved from his plate. He kept them locked downward, taking quick, full bites of his food. Emma could tell he was trying to keep his mind off of something.

None of the people at the table who were related would talk to one another, or to Emma. Finally, Sylar looked at Emma with what seemed like sympathy, smiled, and said, "Dinner is delicious. You're a very good cook."

Emma smiled back, uneasily. "Thank you. It helped that we had a very well-stocked pantry. Thank you for getting the supplies we needed."

Claire did something – Emma missed it because it was more sound than gesture – but it was something like a sigh or a exhalation of breath that was a little harder than just a normal exhalation. In any case, it caught everyone's attention. Sylar looked at her.

It was a moment that seemed to escape everyone else in its briefness – it nearly escaped even Emma too. Sylar flicked his eyes upward, across the table at Claire, and Emma caught a glimpse of the emotions that registered there, in just the brief second that it lasted.

There was pain there, guilt. Sylar didn't strike Emma as a sentimental man – he seemed like a loner who cared little for people, or hadn't had much experience at it – but when she saw his eyes linger for just that second on Claire, she realized that there was something she'd missed before.

Peter excused himself from the table first. He ran his fingers lightly over Emma's shoulders as he passed by, causing slight shivers in her. It was a familiar, possessive gesture, and ordinarily Emma would have found the shivery reaction to be delightful. But there was a knowledge in Peter's gesture, something old and world-heavy – as if he was trying to elude his jadedness for a moment.

Emma often believed that Peter viewed her as naïve and innocent, partly because he discovered his powers before her and had experienced more of the incredible and surreal than she had. That he would admit to. But the other reason was her disability. In Peter's eyes, it made her vulnerable. But he'd never admit it. It was the one thing about him that grated on her.

By the time Emma had roused herself from these thoughts, she found that Angela and Claire had retreated to the other room, presumably to speak freely without worrying that Emma could read their lips. With a sigh, Emma began to clear the table, wondering now if she wouldn't have been better off facing the riots going on outside rather than living apart from everyone else in this hiding place.

* * *

Peter stared out at the black sky, squinting at the unusual brightness of the moon that night. He was thinking that at that very moment, when his corner of the world seemed so quiet and peaceful, there was chaos and misery nearly everywhere else. People being torn out of their homes and questioned for what they knew about abilities. Riots, arsons, murders – all around him. If Noah Bennett was right, then in two nights, all would be right with the world again. Somehow, he had a good deal of trouble believing that.

"You know you can't go through with it, Peter," a voice said from behind him. Peter turned around, smiled bitterly. It was Sylar.

Peter sighed and turned away. "I suppose I don't need to give you the details. You probably figured everything out when you brushed my hand passing the mashed potatoes tonight."

Sylar nodded. "As much as I despise Noah Bennett, I have to say that I understand why he's planning this. And it's a very clever plan too, in spite of my opposition to it."

Peter gave a short laugh. "Understanding? That doesn't sound like you."

"And spearheading the biggest lie in human history doesn't sound like you, Peter. Lying to the people you love most definitely doesn't. Look, I know I don't know you that long…"

Sylar made himself tingle as he said those untrue words. Sylar knew Peter; he probably knew Peter better than anyone else did, even those who had known him longer. Not only did he have the advantage of possessing Nathan's memories, but he'd also lived with the man for years in their virtual prison. But Sylar knew that Peter was irritated and even ashamed of the intimacy between them, and he didn't want to remind Peter of that fact if it would only push him further from his side.

Sylar continued. "I haven't known you long, but I do know that this is killing you. Pardon my French, but as fucked up as everything is right now, Bennett's plan is not the answer."

"Then what is, Sylar?" Peter spat. "How do you propose to make everything better?" _Since you're such an expert on the right thing to do_, Peter thought to himself with spite. He nervously caught a glimpse of Sylar out of the corner of his eye, as if he expected the other man could read his thoughts.

Sylar looked away. "I have an idea. It won't stop anything, just slow it down. But, it will mean that no one will get hurt. Do you want to hear it?"

Peter seemed to take forever to answer. "Yes."

* * *

Emma put the last dish in the dishwasher and clicked the lock into place. She could feel the gentle vibrations of the machine working beneath her toes as she leaned against the counter. She closed her eyes, imagining with the colors and shapes would be like from the humming of the washer. She imagined pale blue waves, flecked with white. Yet another unlikely advantage of being deaf: the mundane sound of an appliance working would elude the hearing, but to her, it was like watching a painting before her eyes.

Emma felt a tug on her sleeve, and opened her eyes to find Claire standing next to her with two dirty dessert plates and a guilty look. "I guess it's too late to add these in."

"Oh, that's fine. I'll wash them up," Emma took the plates from the other girl quickly, and turned to the sink.

As she washed, Emma had the feeling Claire was saying something to her, but of course she couldn't be sure without looking at her lips. She wondered if Claire was using the opportunity to confess something, since speaking to Emma's back was like shouting in the wind – she could say it without having to justify it.

Emma sighed as the brown flecks of chocolate from the plates mixed with the white foam of the soap. "I know you aren't obligated to tell me anything, but you should know that I'm more perceptive than you might think I am." She turned around to face Claire, who was looking at the ground in embarrassment. "I'm deaf, not blind. What's going on between you and Sylar? And why is Peter acting so strangely?"

Claire crossed her arms. "To answer your first question, nothing. Absolutely nothing, and that's the way it's always going to be. As far as Peter goes…I have no idea. He doesn't tell me any more than he tells you. Although you probably know far more than I do, sharing a bed with him and all."

Seeing Emma's pale cheeks burn from her words, Claire apologized. "I don't mean to make you feel bad. I'm glad he has you. I hope you two will be very happy."

Emma smiled, "Well, I hope-"

Emma trailed off as she realized Claire was hearing something. The younger girl's eyebrows were furrowed as she leaned towards the sound of the TV coming from the next room. Claire walked into the living room, and Emma followed.

It was a special report from the President. He approached the podium solemnly, flanked by his cabinet members and Congress. Claire's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she watched the leader of her country prepare to speak. She hadn't forgotten that this was the man who had authorized the hunting down and imprisoning of dozens of Specials like herself. It didn't matter anymore that Nathan was the one who had told him; as far as Claire was concerned, he'd atoned for his part. But now that she was watching President Dubose finally react to the truth he had no choice but to acknowledge, she was almost certain she wasn't going to like what he was going to say.

"My fellow Americans," he began, "Over the last week we have witnessed, through various forms of media, the most incredible event in human history. What was once the stuff of our imaginations in literature and art is now reality. The news has met all of us with shock, and our reactions have been mixed across the board: fear, paranoia, joy, hope – we've experienced them all. These emotions have turned into hate, and violence. What is the most upsetting is that we have been unable to prove without a shadow of a doubt, that what we have seen is not a massive conspiracy, a hoax of the grandest and cruelest kind."

"Liar," Claire hissed as the President continued his speech. "He didn't have any trouble believing it when he had us hunted down and drugged like animals."

"Claire, please," Emma chided. "I need to concentrate if I'm going to understand what he's saying. This broadcast doesn't have closed captioning."

Claire apologized, and turned to listen to the rest of the speech.

"After conferring with my advisors, we have decided to request that those who claim to have abilities similar to Claire Bennett's voluntarily submit to observation, study, and testing to understand the root of these events. We need to understand the cause of these…abnormalities. If there is a way to treat it, to ensure that no more innocent lives are threatened. Those who submit to the testing will be guaranteed all of their rights under the constitution.

On a side note, we are asking that if Claire Bennett is watching this broadcast, that she immediately turn herself in to the authorities. We hope that in setting about this turn of events, she may also set an example to others like herself."

Claire didn't want to hear any more. She turned to Emma. "We need to do something about this!"

"Yes. But you know what happened when you tried to tell the world about us. The government tried to turn you into a guinea pig."

"I need to get on a broadcast from a safe location. How am I going to do that?"

As if fate and the universe heard her, Claire's cell phone cracked and buzzed from its resting place on the coffee table. Claire gave Emma a curious look, then swept it into her hands.

She smiled as she read Micah Sanders' name on the glowing blue screen of her phone. "Ask and ye shall receive."

* * *

As much as Noah tried to deny having prejudices towards any group, he had to admit that stereotyping had always been useful in his line of work. It had helped to identify patterns in the behaviors of Specials and use them to track them down. Now, sitting in the room at the Watergate that he and Lauren had rented, waiting for their meeting to begin, he began to feel his old profiling tendencies kicking in.

They all had a particular mold they fit into. Shapeshifters and Illusionists were charming and had a sense of humor, but were naturally deceitful. They could never really be sincere, be themselves, because they were capable of being so many other people.

Flyers were dreamers; they looked at life the way they watched the world below them. No problem was too big; no pain or suffering couldn't be overcome. When they realized that there were things that they couldn't put right, they simply flew away from it. The sky was big and empty and welcoming.

Pre-cogs tended to be tormented, nearly to the point of madness. Everyone thinks they want to know the future, but they don't. What people really want is the assurance that everything will turn out all right. Pre-cogs have the unfortunate advantage of knowing that it often doesn't.

Re-gens were rebels, revolutionaries. Noah had just formed this separate library in his head after he'd been forced to deal with the consequences of his daughter's actions. At first it hadn't occurred to him that it was part of her genetic design; for him, it was just Claire being Claire. It took sitting helpless in a hotel room, clutching a shotgun and staring out at a city gone mad to make him realize that Re-gens like his daughter and Adam Monroe were inherent troublemakers. He hypothesized it was because they were aware that being immortal meant living through the very worst humanity had to offer. There was no welcoming thought of death at the end of a miserable life, nor the self-deprecating realization that life was short and they had to make the best of it; therefore, Re-gens spent their time trying to reshape their world to fit their ideal.

Negators, those who could remove memories and take away powers, were difficult to spot. They were quiet, introverted. They watched the world with a sense of incredulity, as if none of it were real. As if it were some sort of game waiting for them to make their move.

Noah had always thought Rene's reticence was part of his individual personality; having gathered other Negators all together for their plan, he now knew it was just who they were. They hardly made eye contact with him or any of the others. They did not speak; they could not be coerced or provoked, even by the shapeshifters. It made Noah nervous.

Then Lauren arrived with Peter in tow and Noah bolted out of his seat in relief. "Good! We're all here. Let's begin."

Noah and Lauren gave the teams their assignments, briefed them on the time frame, and gave them the documents they'd need for travel. The teams adjourned, and Noah noticed that Peter ducked out first, giving him a pointed look as he headed for the hallway.

"Lauren," Noah said, not taking his eyes off the door. "Finish up here. I'm going after Peter."

Noah headed out the door, just brushing past a tall, red-haired shapeshifter. The man shot him a particularly hateful look as he moved out of Noah's way.

"Peter!" Noah called as he watched Peter head for the door.

"Peter, where are you going? You need to wait for your team," Noah reminded him when he caught up with the younger man.

Peter shook his head. "I'm having doubts, Noah. You must be having doubts too. I'm sure of it."

Noah shot him a bemused look. "We don't have time for doubts. This has to be done – now!"

The look on Peter's face was confusing. He seemed to be looking past Noah, towards the empty hall, as if he were expecting something. "What if this doesn't work? What are we going to do then? Claire will never forgive us."

"Argh, I don't have time for this. Peter if you're backing out, fine, that's your mistake to make, but I can't sit here and argue with you!"

"What's going on?" Lauren called from behind them.

"Peter doesn't think he can go through with this," Noah said in a mocking, nasty voice.

Lauren scowled. "I have a dozen people in there ready to go. This isn't the time to have a change of heart!"

Suddenly, Hiro Nakamura appeared in the hallway, causing all three of them to jump. He smiled in his goofy way. "Time to go!" With that, he closed his eyes, and they were whizzed away into nothingness.

* * *

**Aaron Neil: **We're back with the Aaron Neil hour, which, if we can be honest, has become far more than an hour with the latest news that President Dubose plans to implement a quote-unquote voluntary detention and testing of people who exhibit extra-human abilities like that of Claire Bennett. We now know Bennett is the young woman who has created this sensational news story. I have with me General Thomas Wakefield, a former commander in Operation Desert Storm and a regular contributor to our show. Our other guest is Doctor Mohinder Suresh, a geneticist who has been studying these genetic mutations for several years. Gentlemen, thank you both for attending.

**General Wakefield and Dr. Suresh:** Thank you.

**Aaron Neil:** General Wakefield, let me begin with you. Over the last few days, as we've watched the riots erupt from both urban and rural areas, you've claimed that this revelation on human evolution is not the cause, but rather a result of international governments infecting our population with diseases in order to distract us to leave us open for invasion. Could you – could you please elaborate on your claims?

**GW:** Certainly, Aaron. Our intelligence reports that governments such as North Korea and Iran have had spies living among us for years, blending into our society to gather reconnaissance on us. There have been cases of water and airborne attacks, assassinations – even the September 11th attacks can be linked to these undercover operations. This new "revelation" about human evolution is no different. The video of that girl jumping from the ferris wheel is no different – it was orchestrated to divert our attention from a sinister, impending attack from our enemies overseas. What we need to do is drop this…witchhunt for "superheroes," if I may use such a sensational term, and focus our attention on the real issue at hand – finding the foreign government responsible."

**AN:** Thank you, General. Doctor Suresh, let me turn to you. In your book, _Activating Evolution_, you've claimed that human evolution has been an active part of human events for hundreds of years. Things like flight, teleportation, rapid cell regeneration are all natural parts of human evolution. If that's the case, why haven't we seen instances of this before? I would think it would be difficult to hide these abilities, assuming people would even want to."

**MS:** Well there are two reasons. Firstly, only approximately 10% of the world's population possesses the genetic potential for these abilities. And of these people who do carry the genes, not all of them have their powers activate. In my experience, it takes a high rush of adrenaline to activate these abilities – that doesn't happen for all of these people.

**AN:** I see. And for those whose powers do activate? Why haven't they…done what Claire Bennett did last week, and tell the world who they are?

**MS:** Fear, I suppose? The fear that what has happened in the last few days would happen if they revealed themselves.

**GW **(_chuckling derisively)_: But Dr. Suresh, if these people are "naturally gifted," which I am 100% sure they are not, wouldn't there have been some sort of proof? I mean, you'd think that you'd have these superheroes jumping from tall buildings or…stopping cars from crashing into other cars.

**MS:** Well, perhaps there is proof, General Wakefield. And perhaps there have been covert organizations covering up this knowledge and keeping it from the public for years! Perhaps the government's even been doing some experimenting of their own.

**AN:** Wait, I'm sorry. Dr. Suresh, are you accusing the United States government of having knowledge of this issue and even experimenting on people for years?

**MS: **I…I don't know. It is possible.

**GW: **Oh, this is ridiculous! The very idea that our government would keep something this important and dangerous from its people –

**MS:** Of course, General. Because the government never does anything morally questionable, does it? Things like the Japanese internment camps in World War II and Tuskeegee never happened, right?

**GW:** You are out of line, sir!

**AN:** Gentlemen, please. Doctor Suresh, are you at least willing to accept the possibility that a foreign terrorist organization may be trying to distract us from a greater threat?

**MS:** I might – if I didn't know for a fact that this revelation is happening all over the world right now! Nations in South America, Europe, Africa, yes, even in places like North Korea and Palestine, are having to deal with the knowledge that human evolution is very real and won't go away peacefully!

**GW:** And what about this girl that supposedly set off this chain of events – Claire Bennett – where is she, exactly? Conveniently she has vanished with no trace. Surely if she was as passionate about telling the world the truth, she wouldn't just fly off – no pun intended – without explaining herself.

**MS:** Claire is a…very good friend of mine, with a family that loves her. They are trying to protect her right now. There are many people that want her dead.

**AN:** Well, from what I've seen, that won't be an easy thing to do. But finding her should be fairly easy, her picture has been everywhere on the television and internet. Yet, she's disappeared like a ghost.

**GW:** Hmpf. Is invisibility one of your "good friend's" abilities too, Doctor Suresh? Perhaps you know where she is, since you have such a good friendship. I think it might even be possible that you're hiding her right now, and you're using this broadcast to distract us from finding this…terrorist…and defending ourselves from this threat.

**Claire Bennett** (_from the broadcast screen behind their chairs)_: Mohinder is innocent.

**Aaron Neil** (_gasping lightly, and looking around at the crew in panic)_: Uh, I'm sorry, this is highly unusual. How did she get broadcasted to our channel?

**CB:** Let's just say I know a guy who can talk to computers.

**AN **(_lightly touching his earpiece): _I'm getting reports from our technical staff that they have no idea how this is being fed into our broadcast, but they are assuring me that this is live. _Looking around again in uncertainty_ Well…Miss Bennett…since you're here with us, perhaps you'd like to explain yourself?

**CB:** Well, I've come here to tell the truth about who we are and what we want. From what I've seen, there are a lot of misconceptions floating around (_looks pointedly at General Wakefield, who stirs uncomfortably in his chair). _And of course, I'll try to answer any questions I can.

**AN: **I…see. I suppose my first question would be, where have you been this week, Miss Bennett? We've had quite a mess on our hands.

**CB:** Mohinder was telling the truth. My family has been protecting me. After I leapt from the ferris wheel, the government tried to hold me against my will. I escaped, and I've been in hiding.

**AN:** The government held you against your will? What did they try to do to you?

**GW:** The same thing they do to any terrorist: interrogate her and uncover her group's plan.

**CB **(_frowning in anger)_: I don't have a plan. I don't have a group. And we're not terrorists. Do you want to know who we are? We're mothers and fathers. We're husbands, and wives, and sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. We're the people who drive the buses your kids take to school, we're the people who serve your coffee in your favorite restaurants; we help you with your taxes, haul away your trash, and help deliver your children. We come home tired at the end of a long day of work, then go to bed for all too short a night and wake up in the morning and do it all over again, year after year. We mow our lawns on the weekends and bake cupcakes for school bake sales. We worry about how we're going to pay our mortgages and feed our families. And long after our kids grow up, we still turn around in a grocery store when a child yells, "Mom" because it's just built into us to do that after all those years. That's who we are. If that makes us different from anyone else, then I guess we _are_ terrorists.

**AN:** That was a very moving speech, Miss Bennett. But you can't deny, however, that if human evolution is true, then all these people who live among us are capable of extraordinary things. You are capable of extraordinary things, unless your first stunt was just that.

**CB **(_chuckles mirthlessly)_: Ah yes, I see. I read the blogs that say that the video of my healing is just a hoax. And you'd like me to prove it again, don't you Mr. Neil? Boost your ratings?

**AN** (_smiles)_: You've chosen my show for a reason, Miss Bennett. I just want to see you take advantage of the opportunity.

**Mohinder:** Claire, don't. You don't need to prove anything.

**CB:** I've come this far, Mohinder. A little farther won't make any difference.

_The camera pans away, revealing Claire standing next to a table and a large, shiny meat cleaver. Claire picks up the meat cleaver and shows it to the camera. _

**CB:** A standard butcher's tool. So sharp it can cut through bone and cartilage. Two guesses what I'm going to do with it.

_Suddenly, Claire slaps her right hand onto the table, raises the cleaver high in the air with the other hand, and brings it down onto her flesh with a nearly deafening crack as the metal slices through skin, muscle, blood, and bone, severing the hand from the body. The defenseless appendage is thrown several inches away._

_Aaron Neil turns green and nearly vomits. General Wakefield cringes. Mohinder sits there in shock. _

_Claire Bennett groans in exertion, then brings the bloody stump of her left arm in front of the camera._

**CB:** Keep looking, gentlemen. This is the money shot.

_The three men on stage, the production crew, and 5 million viewers watch as the deathly white skeletal frame of a hand pushes through the mangled flesh, the carpal and metacarpal branching into the phalanges that make the fingers. The bones are immediately followed by muscle layering itself like ribbon over the frame. Veins and capillaries twist and twine themselves through the muscle and nerve. Finally, a smooth golden covering of satin pushes and pulsates, enfolding the red mass of digits. Claire smiles and waves the fingers in front of the camera, turning it from palm to back and to palm again, demonstrating that this new hand works just as well as the old one._

**CB** (s_miles sadly, feeling as though she's taken away the innocence of these grown men)_: It's a brave new world, everyone. The only way we're going to survive it is together.


	10. Chapter 10

Moments after Hiro had whisked them away from the Watergate, Noah, Lauren and Peter found themselves on the rooftop of a building. Noah blinked as he became adjusted to the brisk, cold wind, then turned displeased to Hiro, who was smiling in his strange, naïve way.

Lauren spoke first. "What the hell is going on here? Where are we anyway?"

Peter came forward, holding up his hands in appeasement. "We're only a few miles away. Don't blame Hiro; I asked him to do this."

Noah lunged at Peter, grabbing him roughly by the collar. "What the hell are you trying to do?"

Peter swallowed. "I'm trying to keep you from making a huge mistake. This isn't right, and I'm not the only one who feels this way."

"We will not allow you to do this. The world needs heroes, and we won't let you take them away," Hiro added.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Lauren snapped. "People cannot handle this. You've seen what's happened in the last few days. Does that look like progress to you?"

"It's no use arguing with these two," Noah said, taking Lauren's arm. "Come on, let's get back to the hotel before-"

Noah was interrupted by a bright surge of light and the dull, heavy roar of an explosion. They all threw up their hands, shielding themselves from the fiery blaze. It took a few seconds to realize that the building that had been bombed was the Watergate, where the rest of Noah's team had been staying.

"Rene!" Noah cried in horror.

"Oh God! How did this happen?" Lauren cried.

Peter panted in anxiety as the smoke began to fill the air. As he turned away, his gaze pierced a dark corner of the building's roof and he realized that Sylar was standing in the shadows, his face calm and unfeeling.

* * *

Three hundred and sixty five miles away, Claire's televised plea to the world was abruptly cut short.

Not long after she'd demonstrated her regenerating skills, the camera shut off, the television began to snow. Frowning at Emma, who was standing in a corner away from the camera's shot, Claire grabbed her cell phone and called Micah.

"What happened?" she asked him.

"I – I don't know. The broadcast was working fine. But the server at the station in New York City isn't listening to me anymore."

"Can you reconnect with it?"

Micah sighed. "Sorry, Claire. It's like I've been cut off. I'll keep trying, though."

"Damnit," Claire swore as she disconnected the call. She turned to Emma. "What are we going to do now?"

Emma was about to answer, but stopped and directed her eyes to the stairway behind them. Claire followed Emma's gaze and realized Angela was standing on the stairs.

Claire felt like her heart dropped from her chest to her feet. "Don't lecture me. Please don't lecture me," she warned her grandmother.

"We need to get our coats and get out of here. Your broadcast getting cut off was a sign that we're in danger," Angela told Claire and Emma, walking downstairs to meet them.

"But no one knows where we are. No one's found us so far," Emma argued. "Where would we go anyway?"

"We'll figure it out. Right now the best thing we can do is-"

Angela was stopped in mid-sentence, and it was a sentence she would never have the chance to complete. A bullet had been shot through the window, breaking the glass and entering Angela's left breast. She eyes became blank, she coughed, and she sank to the floor.

"No!" Claire wailed as she fell to the floor with her grandmother. Emma ducked down with them, pressing herself to the ground as she realized that more bullets were being shot into the house.

"Claire, we need to get out of here. The house is under attack!" Emma cried, wincing as the shards of glass danced upon the hardwood floors.

Claire sobbed in agony, feeling Angela's hand grow cold and slack in hers. She allowed herself one last look at Angela, trying to get her to look into her eyes and recognize her. She knew that Angela was fading, that she wasn't even looking at Claire, but rather past her to something else beyond. Collecting herself the best she could, she allowed Emma to pull her away from her grandmother's body as they crawled toward the basement and to the garage.

Claire could hear footsteps like thunder above their heads as they made their way into the concrete garage. "They're in the house," she told Emma. "I can hear them."

"For once, I'm glad I can't," Emma quipped. She pulled open the door to an SUV parked in the enclosure, pushing Claire inside.

"Drive," Emma told her.

Claire tearfully shook her head. "I can't, Emma. I can't! I'll get you killed."

"You'll be able to hear if there's anything bad coming. It'll get your mind off of…it. Come on! We have to go! They're coming!"

Claire was going to protest again when she heard the door to the garage being broken into. Frantically fumbling around to find the keys, she miraculously felt them on the dash and plunged the metal bar into the ignition, shifting the truck into drive and plowing through the metal gates and onto the open road.

The truck swung wildly to and fro as Claire fought to regain control of it. She gripped the wheel, feeling the pounding of her heart in the throbbing of her fingertips. Once the car was in her control, she realized how dark the road was and she switched on the headlights. The road was dark and winding – an easy target for creating an accident.

Emma turned her head to look out the window. She calmed a bit, seeing the road was clear. She allowed herself to exhale. "I think we lost them."

Claire didn't answer. She was forcing herself not to think of leaving Angela behind, lying alone with a bullet in her heart. This was all her fault. Angela was dead because of her. Hundreds of people were dead because of what she'd done.

"God, what was I thinking?" she murmured to herself. She shut her eyes for a moment, blocking out those thoughts and keeping any tears from escaping. She didn't have time for this right now. She had to think of what to do next. She had to keep them safe.

_Whump_! Came the sound and vibrations of something running into the side of the SUV. Claire and Emma cried out as the truck swerved sharply. The wheels screamed as Claire fought to keep the truck on the road.

It was another truck, which had bumped them. There were two now, black ones, flanking them. They were taking turns ramming the truck that Claire was driving.

"Get down!"Claire shouted at Emma, using her free hand to push on the other woman's shoulder to get her to the floor. Just as Emma was on the floor of the truck, a bullet entered the driver's side window and struck Claire in the upper arm.

Claire screamed as she felt the bullet tear through her flesh and lodge itself in her shoulder. "Shit," she cried. She could feel Emma trying to sit up, and she pushed her down again, knowing that the moment their attackers saw Emma's head they'd have another target.

Claire pressed the accelerator right to the floor, creating only a few feet of lead over the two trucks. She could feel her muscles pushing the bullet out of her arm as it tried to repair itself, but no sooner had the bullet popped out of her skin and the wound had undone itself than another bullet crashed through the back window and struck Claire again, this time in the back of her neck.

Claire couldn't breathe, couldn't see. She gagged as the blood flowed out of her veins and clogged her windpipe. She fell against the seat, the truck out of control and skidding off of the road.

Emma now sat up and tried to get control of the wheel. They were plunging into the woods, branches and leaves smacking against the frame of the car as the rolled violently down the dirt hills.

They'd reached the end of the land, at a steep cliff where sharp rocks and a river flowed below. In spite of Emma's best efforts, she couldn't get the car to stop, and they were about to plunge off the cliff. Emma looked in Claire's direction, hardly able to see her in the dark. She could see the blood gleaming on the girl's neck as she choked and gasped for breath. She would survive this. Emma would not.

Emma took Claire's hand and shut her eyes as she prepared for the descent. She wasn't a religious woman by any means, but she couldn't help but find herself praying to God to hear her.

The front tires rolled off of the cliff and Emma screamed.

Then, the car stopped.

They were on a precarious angle, the front of the truck poised to roll right off of the cliff. The rear was up in the air.

Emma's heart raced as she felt the back of the truck hit the ground with a thud, then slowly roll backwards, inching further and further away from the cliff. Emma rolled down the window of the truck, cautiously looking behind her. She couldn't see much, but she was able to just make out the two black SUVs that had pursued them lying toppled over on their sides, on the road. She thought she could see a couple of people walking toward them, slowly but purposefully.

She turned back to Claire, who was now coughing as she was able to finally catch her breath again. Her hand quickly came to her throat, and she looked at Emma questioningly.

"I don't know what happened," Emma told her. "But something – someone – saved us. I guess."

Claire smiled at Emma, but the smile quickly faded as she heard some rustling in the woods coming from the open window. Frowning, she slowly unlocked the door and prepared to get out. Emma tried to stop her, but Claire squeezed her hand – her way of saying that she needed to look and to stay in the car.

Claire climbed out quietly, moving as stealthily in the grass as she could. She could feel there were eyes on her as she moved away from the car. "Who's there?" she called out.

No response. "I know you're there. Come on out!" she called in the darkness again.

After a few seconds, the rustling could be heard again as someone waded through the tall grass of the woods and came towards her. Claire held her hands up in a self-defense posture, ready to take on whoever was making those footsteps.

She could just make out the person. She knew it was a man, but that was about all she could gather. He was coming slowly toward her, his arms outstretched and his hands open and empty. He finally came into the path of the moonlight and she could see him now, all of him. He smiled at her. Her arms came down. A sobbing laugh of relief tumbled from her lips.

"West," she said, falling forward, into his arms.

* * *

Barbara Zimmerman did exemplary work. This was a fact; it wasn't the vicarious praise of a doting parent, nor the hubris of deep-seated self-doubt. Anyone who had ever had the pleasure of experiencing Barbara's work – either as an observer or a subject – would never deny this fact.

It was this outstanding skill that made life bearable for Barbara. Living in a world in which she knew everything about her sisters and they hadn't even the slightest notion that she existed was a daily torment. Tracy and Nikki both lived lives fraught with drama, but they had experienced life in a way that Barbara never had and probably never would. Shy, overweight Barbara was on the outside looking in, at her thinner, more desirable sisters' lives: one a powerful political player, the other having been married and given birth to a son who would no doubt grow up to be more powerful than any of them.

Barbara had managed to put this out of her mind as she emerged from the operating room that night, exhausted but nonetheless pleased with her work. She pulled the white cap holding her short blonde hair from her face, removed her clear plastic gloves, and collapsed into the nearby bench in the main hallway of her father's private office.

She leaned her head against the yellow, slightly odorous wallpaper and closed her eyes. She knew she probably should look at the news to see the reaction to Claire Bennett's appearance on the Aaron Neil show, but finally having a chance to sit felt too good. Besides, Bruno would surely fill her in once he returned from his work.

Barbara's waiting time was relatively short, as Bruno appeared only a few minutes later. She sprang from the bench and automatically pressed herself against the wall, hoping that this stance made her appear thinner to the red-haired man.

She smiled a terrified smile. "Mission accomplished?" she managed to croak out.

Bruno did not smile back. "It's done. Bennett and his lackeys are burning in Hell as we speak. How's he doing?" he asked, motioning with his head toward the operating room.

"Why don't you go in and see for yourself? He's still under anesthesia."

Barbara bit in nails in anxiety as Bruno went to see her work. Though he never said anything to her directly, Bruno was one of her most discriminating critics. It was mostly due to the fact that their abilities were so similar. He knew good work when he saw it, since he was such a professional himself. She was dying to know what he thought while at the same time dreading it.

She arranged herself primly on the waiting bench as Bruno emerged from the operating room. She looked up at him as non-chalantly as possible. "It was all done as he wanted."

He nodded in agreement. "Very good work. The shading of the hair and eyes is exquisite. I couldn't have done it better myself."

Barbara beamed with pride; she couldn't help herself. "Well, it's what he wanted," she said again, cursing herself momentarily for her silly repetition. "So what happens now?"

"Now, dear Barbara," Bruno began, collapsing on the bench next to her, "You and I take a much needed, all too brief break. Tomorrow's going to be a fresh new Hell."

He was so strong and so…capable, and Barbara wanted desperately to lean against her adoptive brother. But she didn't dare. It wasn't the right time yet. Later, after she was able to prove how strong and capable she was too. She knew what she needed to do next. She was sure she'd have no problems getting Tracy to do what they wanted her to do.

And if Barbara couldn't convince her…well, they were identical siblings, weren't they, with the same genetic structure?

No one would ever know the difference.


	11. Chapter 11

It was like a tomb in the belly of the prison ship as it passed through inspection. The prisoners sat in their rows, silent, their heads bowed as if in prayer. Not a single breath could be heard in the forty five minutes it took for the ship and its contents to get approval from the Port of Florida.

Finally, one of the marshals came down with his men, guns drawn and ready to fire at the slightest movement. "All right, scum!" he bellowed at them. "Time to move out. You'll go through detox, then a full body scan, and get delivered to your assigned farm. I hope you're looking forward to your 12 hour work days."

The marshals had them stand and turn simultaneously, then march out row by row. Marina could feel the hot, rank breath of the man behind her on the back of her neck as they waited to exit. She squinted in disgust, trying to will herself to think of her escape instead. She knew that the prison ship was really the only way an expatriate like her was going to get back into the country, but she still hated it. Whatever Claire was up to, Marina could only hope it was worth the trouble she had put her through.

The row in front of Marina's was just filing out of the chamber when she caught a glimpse of one of the prisoners slipping something to the main flank guard. She saw the officer discretely nod to the other man as he passed by. Marina felt a cold tingle of fear run through her head at this exchange.

They were marching out of the chamber, row after row, side by side. Marina wasn't a short woman, but she was walled in by the bodies of the other prisoners at the front and sides so she couldn't see where they were going. She soon was aware, however, that the men marching around her had manipulated their movement, giving her little choice but to be pulled along with them.

The wall of prisoners around her had walked her to a dark corner of the port. Marina looked around frantically for the guards, but there were none to be found. They'd been paid off well.

The tall African who'd laughed when Marina had demeaned Armis stood in her way, his arms crossed, his face humorless. Three other men stood around her as well – two looked Greek, the other Irish.

Marina threw her shoulders back, trying not to show her fear. She knew she stood no chance against all four of them – not without a weapon. She could take on one of them in basic hand to hand probably, two maybe – but the powerful African, whose name was Akinola, tipped the balance in favor of her attackers.

"Here's the deal," Akinola told her. "You get on your knees, I fuck your face, and you'll walk out of here alive."

Marina smiled. "You saw what I did to Armis' finger. How can you be sure I won't do the same thing to your prick?"

Marina's answer came in the form of a sharp blow to the back of the head. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees as everything became blurry for a moment.

They were on her in an instant. They pushed her face first into the cold, dirty floor. Her teeth hit the concrete with a tiny _clink_.

She knew exactly where each of the eight hands was in relation to her body. Two hands held her knees in a vice-like grip. Two were on her shoulders. One had her ponytail gripped tight, pulling her head back while simultaneously smearing her face in the dust. The other two hands were working off her pants.

She could feel their breath on her skin, could feel their fingers pulling at her, pushing into her. She grunted at the assault, forcing herself not to grant them any more satisfaction by giving in to her body's urge to scream and sob.

Then, as if by a miracle, their weight was lifted from her and she could breathe again. She heard zaps of electricity, then cries of pain. She brought herself to a sitting position, realizing that one of the guards had shot her attackers with stunner darts and they were now lying on the ground, writhing in shock.

Sato was soon by her side. "Are you all right?" he whispered to her.

Marina, who was busy pulling her pants back to her waist, ignored his question. She hated him, even more than the men who had just attacked her. She hated him for having seen her that way. She kept her face down, not wanting to even look at him. She said nothing.

Sato stood up and confronted the guard, who now had the four disoriented prisoners chained together and escorted out of the room. "What the hell is this?" he demanded. "You promised me that no harm would come to my meat. Now I probably won't get half of what her lord promised me!"

"I didn't promise you shit," the guard snapped back. "You were too damn cheap to pay for a commercial carrier, so that's what you get. I'm not bending over backwards so you can make a buck off some trifling whore."

Sato barely managed to keep himself from breaking the man's face at these words. He knew he had to stay in character if they were going to escape. "Fine. How do I get out of here?"

"One of our farm runners will take you as far as Carolina. You'll need to check in with the state authority once you get there."

Sato nodded and turned to Marina, who had composed herself as best she could, in spite of her dirty face and torn clothes. His heart was heavy with pity, but he couldn't show it. "Come on," he told her, taking her arm. "You've caused me enough trouble. In front so I can keep an eye on you."

As they walked out of the room, the guard called out, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Sato looked at him in confusion. "What?"

"The cuffs. If the meat's so important to you, you've gotta keep it secure, right?"

Sato nodded, taking out the cuffs. He turned Marina around, encasing her wrists in the metal fixtures. Taking a quick glance over his shoulder at the guard, he pretended to input a locking sequence in the handcuffs' mainboard.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Marina was in the back of a security runner, bundled in a cheap, scratchy, but clean snowsuit, her hands uncomfortably wedged behind her. She quietly began to work her wrists out of the cuffs, hoping that Sato was doing a decent job of distracting the guard.

In actuality, Sato had to provide very little of a distraction. The homely, balding agent seemed thrilled to have company along his usual lonely run to the Carolina briquette farms.

"Say goodbye to civilization, my friend," the agent, whose name was Noble, told Sato. "Florida's where it ends. Those briquette farms – ugh – all I can say is I'm glad I got the job I have. Doesn't matter who you are – they lump all the hardened criminals and the debtors and the foreigners in there together, working in 20 degree temps gathering and shredding hay and moving animal fat."

Noble took a quick glance at the holding area behind the cabin and said with a wry smile. "I'm guessing that one's not gonna end up making charcoal, is she? Looking like that, there's probably some Carolina politician that wants her, huh?"

Sato smiled uneasily. As much as he hated it, he had to admit that he'd rather think of Marina working hard labor on her feet than serving as some man's sex toy on her back. He knew his friend Silas, who had made the arrangements for them to get into the country, was right: Sato cared too much.

* * *

More than twenty four hours earlier, Sato and Marina were sitting in Silas' tent in Trinidad, trying not to gag from the smells of tanning chemicals and the thick stench of animal blood. Silas eyed Marina up and down. He was an old lech, but Sato knew he'd help them for the right price.

"Your truck," he told them. "Give me that, and I'll make the arrangements. You'll leave tonight. I have a friend who can get you on a Port of Florida H.A. ship."

"Wait, H.A.? You mean Human Acquisition? A prison ship?" Marina asked.

"That's right. I'll have one of my boys hack the PF mainframe and register you as parolee meat. Sato will be your handler."

Marina and Sato looked at each other in confusion. "Why does Marina need to pretend to be a convict?"

Silas laughed. "Because she's an expatriate, that's why. The U.S. hates those almost as much as real criminals. She's not getting into that place unless she's in chains."

Sato began to protest, but Marina held his arm and said, "All right, if that's the only way. I've had to do worse."

They spent that evening as Silas' guest. Their host encouraged them to eat hardy, especially Marina, since the conditions on the ship were going to be awful. Before they went to bed, Silas turned to Sato and said, "You should strike her."

Sato looked at him as if he had three heads. "What?"

"She looks too put together. You're supposed to be her handler. You need to show that she's your meat and you have the power. Otherwise, they're not going to believe it."

"He's right, Sato," Marina confirmed. "We can't have them being suspicious." She walked up to him, her face only barely visible in the waning light of the moon. She touched her cheek. "Hit me here."

Sato shook his head. "I can't."

"Just a slap. Just enough to leave a mark."

"No."

"Sato, please. I wouldn't let anyone else do this." Marina felt herself losing control, but she steadied herself. "Claire is going there, and she's all alone. I have to find her. If this helps me get to her in time…I need you to."

Sato sighed and shook his head. Marina closed her eyes in frustration.

Then, he brought his hand back and struck her, so hard that she fell to the sand.

* * *

Noble was still engaged in the one-sided conversation, blissfully unaware that Sato hadn't been listening.

Sato sat up straight and examined the runner's geo display. They were nearing the "black hole," a ten-mile stretch of the main highway from Florida to the north in which wireless communication and homing devices would be inoperable. Silas had warned that if they needed to lose anything or anyone, this was the place to do it.

"So I decided that working as a runner might be boring as shit, but the pay is excellent. You should see the house I have in Tampa!" Noble was saying.

Sato watched him closely, getting ready to press the button that would release the barriers between the cabin of the runner and the holding area. He hoped Marina had gotten herself out of the cuffs by now and had found the weapons reserve in the back.

A tiny beeping noise along with a flashing display indicated that they were at the black hole.

"Oh damn. I hate going through this. Always makes me feel so helpless," Noble complained.

With that, Sato smacked the release button and a second later, Noble felt the cold metal of a rifle against the back of his head.

"I guess this just isn't your day, is it?" Marina hissed in his ear.

Noble gasped and pulled his hands off the controls.

"Now, just calm down, Noble," Sato told him in a gentle voice. "You need to keep this runner under control. You're going to stop it right here on the road, okay?"

Noble looked at Sato in fear and disbelief, but he nodded and complied with his orders. After they'd stripped him of all of his communication devices, they had Noble climb out of the runner.

Sato threw him a bag with food and water. "I saw a call box about ten miles back that way," he told him. "You'll be able to make it before the sun sets." Without waiting for a response, Sato closed the hatch of the runner and they sped away.

They hadn't been on the road more than five minutes when it began to snow. Marina put on the wipers and crossed her arms around herself. Sato sat next to her and watched her stone face as they sped north toward where she hoped she'd find Claire.

"Are you all right?" Sato asked her again.

Marina ignored his question and said, "We could have used that food you gave that agent. You know he's just going to alert the government when he gets to the call box."

Sato shrugged. "Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll be grateful that we spared his life."

Marina scoffed. "That compassion of yours is dangerous. It's going to get us killed."

Sato looked away. "My compassion is what got you here now."

Marina cleared her throat. She knew he was right. But she didn't want to admit that she couldn't have gotten this far without his help. She didn't want to acknowledge how relieved she was to see him after being attacked by those raping bastards. She didn't want to need him, period.

In spite of those feelings, she knew that it was only fair to concede that he had been useful. So after several minutes she quietly said, "Thank you."

For some, this would be a poor display of gratitude to someone who'd given up so much and risked so much for a total stranger. But Sato knew how much Marina was really admitting in those two words, and he knew how hard it must have been for her to say them.

He knew some levity was needed. "Thank me for not reading your little epic novel." He reached into the inner pocket of his snowsuit and pulled out Marina's Enlighten. "I haven't looked at it, I promise." He put it in her open palm, shyly looking away from her grateful face. "Keep reading. I'll watch the controls."

Marina smiled genuinely. "Just keep heading north. Hopefully this will tell me where we need to go before we've gone too far."

* * *

For the first time since the two women parted company, Claire was in a more precarious situation than Marina. She was lying on her back, crushed under the weight of the runner she had been hiding in. The crash had killed the two agents who hadn't been paying attention to the road, and had damaged most of the runner's systems. Predictably, the snow had begun to fall in Virginia, and had reached nearly six inches when Claire had regained consciousness for the fourth time since the crash.

She would become lucid and aware of her surroundings for a few minutes, then the pain, cold, and blood loss would become too much for her body and she would die. Then her brain would regenerate her body, and the horrible process would begin again.

She could barely see with the snow in her eyes, so she took sharp, deep breaths to try to blow it from her face. One of her arms was free, so she tried to get it to move up to her head to brush the snow off. She couldn't feel the fingers touching her nose and eyes.

She brought her arm down and hit the ground with her fist, crying out in frustration. "I'm sick and tired of the goddamn snow!" Her heart was slowing down, she felt it. She was going to die again.

She had to do something. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to keep her mind working, but it was hard to keep a machine working that was broken.

"Remember…just remember…" she told herself. "Please remember."

She took a breath in, and smelled perfume. What was it? It was spicy, and slightly earthy? Shalimar? Cinnabar?

It was Chanel. Her grandmother always wore it.

Claire opened her eyes and she could see an elegantly decorated room. The walls were a rich burgundy. The curtains were lace. Angela sat facing away from her, looking at herself in her ivory-colored vanity mirror. She was wearing a crisp grey suit, much like the suit she wore the day Claire left her. Claire squinted, and noticed that Angela had a very large brooch pinned to her chest – a red rose.

Angela delicately applied face power to her cheeks and nose, and took one last liberal spray with her atomizer, allowing the fragrance to engulf her.

She finally acknowledged Claire by directing her gaze in the mirror. "You've found yourself in quite a predicament, my dear," Angela observed.

Claire nodded from beneath the snowy wreckage. "How do I get out?"

Angela chuckled lightly. "You have to figure out what you want first. That's the only way to be free."

Claire moaned. "I want to get out of here. I want to keep moving! I want Marina to understand!"

"But what is she supposed to understand? Where are you going?"

"Oh God. I don't know! I just know I have to get there." Claire could feel the tears in her eyes, stinging them as they grew ice cold on her face. "I don't want to be like…this. I want to be the person I used to be."

Angela slowly turned around in her vanity's seat to look at her granddaughter, and it was now that Claire realized that the red rose shape wasn't a brooch. It was the bloodstain that formed when Angela had been shot through the heart.

"You can't go back to that, just like I can't come back. Or Peter. Or Sylar," Angela said sadly. "We exist only in you, Claire. You carry all of us inside you – the best and the worst of us. You are the final girl, the survivor, the one-woman show."

"But how do I - " before Claire could finish her sentence, Angela turned out the pearl-like light bulbs adorning her vanity and that corner of Claire's mind was once again left in darkness.

The rage began to build in her. She was so sick of her grandmother's riddles! How could she just sit there doing her stupid makeup while her granddaughter was suffering?

Claire looked up at the twisted metal hanging above her head and growled. "I – want – this – to – go!" Her energy focused completely upon it, the runner disengaged from the ground and flew swiftly up in the air, then was thrown several hundred feet away, coming to rest in a huge snow bank.

Claire laughed and cried as she felt her body beginning to heal itself. Legs re-grew themselves. Bones reset. Lacerations stopped bleeding and skin began to close cleanly over muscle. She sat up now, turning her head and waist back and forth to set the discs in her back into place.

The snow had melted away from her. She stood up, feeling the frigid air blow mercilessly upon her body. She didn't care. She was alive, and she had to keep moving. She turned and started walking north.

As Claire walked away, a man with red hair, who was once known as Bruno by his family, walked up to the runner wreckage that now sat sticking straight up in the air like some grotesque modern sculpture. He looked at it briefly, then turned his attention to the figure retreating ahead of him.

"She's beginning to remember," he shouted to the wind, with a smile.


	12. Chapter 12

_July 30, 2010 – one hundred and twenty four years before the crisis_

In all the times he'd visited Rome previously, Dr. Saul Mullens had never seen it so empty. People had fled from the city the way they had in major cities all over the world, abandoning the urban landscapes for the supposed safety of the countryside. They feared the presence of those with the dark and terrible magic, like the blonde American girl who had first revealed the secret to the world.

Those who had stayed in Rome looked like they were suffering from permanent insomnia. They passed Dr. Mullens in a daze, their eyes set upon something far away and intangible. They were like zombies going through their daily routines. Nothing seemed to surprise them, yet they were poised for battle at any moment.

It was recently discovered that several high-ranking officials in the Italian government had family members with abilities. They had all quietly resigned after the matter surfaced.

There had been a rash of suicides in Vienna the week earlier – all teenagers who either had abilities, or were friends with someone with abilities. It had been part of a suicide pact.

In Sardinia, one farm owner had all of his livestock slaughtered, when he learned that one of his farm hands had the ability to talk to animals. The threat of some sort of contamination was too great.

Dr. Mullens wasn't thinking of these things as walked along Via Giulia, savoring its crowded, green feel, while gently rubbing his jaw. His body still ached, though not unpleasantly. He had been told Barbara Zimmerman did excellent work, and he hadn't been disappointed at all. He felt so good, in fact, that he'd gone back to work a little earlier than what was recommended. Barbara pleaded with him to take it easy, to get accustomed to his new form. But Dr. Mullens was having none of it.

"I'm not getting any younger my dear – in spite of your excellent craft," he told the buxom blonde with a wink. "Four months of rehabilitation has been an embarrassment of riches."

He left most of the work to Bruno, but this particular jaunt to Rome had to be handled personally. He had to make sure it went off without a hitch.

Finally, Dr. Mullens arrived at his destination – a small antiques shop that was one of many that defined Via Giulia. The thin wire door was flanked by a large and crudely constructed sign which read "Mostri non benvenuto." Dr. Mullens smirked at this, finding it strangely quaint. It was not to be the last one he would encounter during his trip.

The shop was crowded but neat, and dimly lit by a few sad-looking, naked bulbs. The only occupant was the short but stocky shopkeep, who was bending over the entrails of a cuckoo clock at the front desk. When he heard Dr. Mullens' footsteps, he looked up startled, as if he'd been awakened from a sleep. He squinted at his potential customer, biting gently on his underlip.

"Si? Possi aiutarla?" the shopkeeper asked.

Dr. Mullens smiled, realizing that the man had not recognized him, obviously. "Sto cercando qualcosa di molto speciale."

The man smiled and pointed to the carved figurines sitting on the shelves behind him. "Ho alcune belle d'oro e porcellana pezzi…"

"I'm looking for Carranzano's box," Dr. Mullens interrupted, in a soft, intense voice.

The shopkeeper's smile faded. "Perhaps you did not see the sign outside, Signore," he replied coldly.

The doctor looked around the shop carefully, then at the door to make sure no one was coming in. He leaned over the counter confidentially. "You promised to offer your help whenever I asked of it, Mauro."

Mauro's face went slack with disbelief. "Terremoto," he whispered softly. "I guess you were right when you said anything is possible."

* * *

"So this is it," Dr. Mullens said as he held the fist-sized, red cube up to the light. He shook it lightly in his hands. "Weighs almost nothing. What is this – catlinite?"

"No, no. Too fine-grained for this. I haven't been able to determine what it's made of. Best guess is something close to obsidian."

They were standing in the back room of Mauro's shop. Saul Mullens insisted that Mauro close up the shop for an hour so they would have privacy. He wouldn't risk any outsiders walking in on them.

"It looks like just a plain, ordinary box. I couldn't believe that this was the legendary Carranzano's box that your father used to tell us about. It certainly didn't seem like it was worth the trouble it took to get it," Mauro complained.

Dr. Mullens smiled. "It _is_ just a box – to you and me, and anyone without the ability it takes to see it."

Mauro frowned and scratched his head, ruffling his short, stiff gray hair. "Ability?"

"The ability to see extra dimensions. Felipe Carranzano designed this box to be a model of a tesseract – a four dimensional object. People with the ability will be able to see the inner cube lodged inside the box, and see the cube emerging from the box and then folding into itself, over and over again. Time travelers, teleporters – they have the ability. They think they are defying the laws of nature, when in reality they merely have an extra sense."

Mauro considered this, then reached into the small refrigerator in his office and pulled out a pitcher of water. "So…Felipe Carranzano was a time traveler? Acqua, amico?"

Dr. Mullens took the glass of water gratefully, realizing now the lack of air conditioning and the merciless summer heat. "His whole family was. And several other lines. That's how I'm going to find them all."

"That's quite a feat. Why are you looking for them?"

Dr. Mullens sighed and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "It sounds romantic, I'm sure, but I'm going to bring peace to the world. I'm afraid it won't be in your lifetime, my friend." He pulled out his wallet from his jacket. "How much for it?"

Mauro held up his hand in refusal. "No, no. If what you say is true…I can't put a price on peace. Just make it happen."

* * *

After saying his goodbyes to his friend, Dr. Mullens left the shop to return to his hotel. As he was crossing the street which led to his accomodation, he saw a boy hardly older than fourteen get physically thrown out of the front door of a house and into the street. An older man stood in the doorway of the house, shaking the fist of one hand while holding back a sobbing woman with the other.

"Monster! Freak!" the older man yelled at the shocked boy. "I never want to see you again!"

"Papa! I was only trying to help!" the boy pleaded as he held up his hands, cut from the gravel. Dr. Mullens looked closely, and could now see that the boy's fingertips were a cool ice-blue. The child was a cryo-kinetic, trying to find a way to keep his family comfortable in the sweltering heat with his ability.

Dr. Mullens watched as the neighbors glared at the boy. They kept their distance while the father yelled his oaths and pushed his wife back into the house, but once the door was closed, several of the men now held their gardening tools like weapons, and some of the women and children were holding rocks.

"Run, boy," the doctor whispered to himself. "Just run." He prepared himself for having to step in and reveal his power.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that. The boy got up quickly and broke into a swift pace out of the road, allowing himself only the quickest of looks at the only home he'd ever known before leaving it forever. The neighbors watched him go, then slowly returned to their business. Dr. Mullens knew that these people had watched that child grow up, had probably had him over to their house to play with their children, had gone to his parents' home for his christening and birthday parties.

And they were ready to kill him with barely an afterthought.

* * *

When Saul Mullens returned to his room, he flipped open his laptop, turned on his webcam, and connected to a secure server. Hundreds of miles away, outside of Baltimore, a pretty brunette linked with him.

"Hana, my angel," he greeted her. "How is our group?"

She smiled prettily. "Always poised, my dear."

"And how is our little muckraker?"

"About to go on a special mission. She's integrating very well into her new life. The boy is keeping her… engrossed."

"Hmm," Dr. Mullens grunted skeptically. "Just keep an eye on her. I've seen with my own eyes how fickle she can be."

"Of course. Did you find it?"

He held the carved red box up to the camera for her to see. "Naturally. Easy part's over. Now, the fun begins."

Hana wet her lips in enthusiasm. "So what do you need me to do?"

"I need you to find everyone descended from the Carranzanos. They're going to be the largest group to take care of."

Hana put her hands over the central processor of her laptop and closed her eyes. It took several minutes to find and process all the data she was gathering from the world wide net.

Finally she opened her eyes and exhaled sharply. Dr. Mullens could see the exhaustion in her face. She pressed her index finger against the computer once again, and a few seconds later Dr. Mullens' cell phone chirped cheerfully with the promise of a new message.

"There's seventy three of them," Hana warned. "You've got your work cut out for you."

"Hmm, I see," he answered soberly as he reviewed the data Hana had sent to his phone. "Bruno will help. Have you spoken to Barbara?"

"Yes, she's poised and ready to go."

"Excellent. Good night, my angel."

After Dr. Mullens had shut off his computer and taken a shower, he sat on the bed with Carranzano's box in his hands. He hadn't shared all of his plans with his aides, which he knew was the right thing to do. Still, it was a lonely endeavor. But he'd come too far to stop now.

A figure just outside his field of vision caught his attention. He looked up to realize that there was a mirror direction across the room from him. He looked in it, at the man staring back at him who he still didn't recognize.

* * *

_*** Please note: the Italian is my own research; I'm not fluent in the language. Google Translate should be able to give you the phrases in English._


	13. Chapter 13

When Sylar walked into the camp of the group that had taken Claire away, he instantly felt their eyes upon him, on all sides. People stopped what they were doing when he saw him striding past. Conversations ended abruptly, mid-sentence. Children who were playing in the road left their toys and ran to their parents. Apparently, Sylar's reputation preceded him with these people, who knew him by sight.

In spite of his recent efforts to reform himself, he couldn't help but feel that old sense of satisfaction at their reaction. He had lived for being feared, thrived upon it. What he was beginning to realize now, with Peter's help, is that what he truly wanted was to be respected. And, having been neglected, intimidated, and even bullied all his life had taught him to equate respect with fear.

Now he found that old desires were difficult to deny. Walking through this crowd of people made him want to hurt them, to brutalize them so they'd recognize his power and respect it. Fortunately for those people – and for him, to a certain extent – the drive to become a different person was a match burning inside him, small yet brightly.

Sylar's eyes scanned the crowd for Claire. It had been five days since Sylar and Peter had returned to the house in Albany and found Angela dead, and since Emma had run back to them telling them the story of the people who had saved them from the agents (she had assumed federal government) that had invaded the house and attacked them.

Sylar now stood in the center of the makeshift town, surrounded by others like him who glared at him with hatred and terror. "I'm looking for Claire Bennett!" he shouted. "I know she's here. I want to see her!"

When he received no response, he held up his hand, causing the people to shrink backwards and gasp. They knew what he could do.

"Take it by force. That's your way, isn't it, Sylar?" a voice called out. Sylar turned around to see a teenaged boy with messy black hair standing a few yards away, his arms crossed in a stance of weariness and defiance. "Doesn't matter who you hurt, what you destroy. As long as you get what you want."

Sylar felt his insides tingle at the depth of the boy's words. Was it shame he was feeling? It had been so long, he wasn't sure. Still, he wasn't going to be deterred. "I didn't come here for trouble," he called to him. "Just let me see her and I'll go."

The boy smiled and shook his head in bemusement. "You just don't get it, do you, man? You don't have any power here. And you might be able to do away with one of us easily, but not all of us. So just get out of here while you still can."

Sylar felt Elle's electricity crackling at his fingertips as he held his hands at his sides.

Just then, Claire emerged from the behind the boy. She seemed thinner to Sylar, and he could tell from the red, watery look of her eyes that she'd spent a good deal of time crying. "No, wait!" As she began to walk towards Sylar, the boy tried to stop her, but she gently pushed him back. "It's okay, West." She turned and gave her former enemy a hard look. "Sylar's not here to hurt anyone."

They walked along a country road in a town called New Windsor, about thirty miles north of Baltimore. This was where Claire's rescuers had determined was the safest place to set up their temporary camp while they assessed the potential outfall of the bombing of the Watergate.

The public had naturally blamed their kind for it. The bombing was just the kind of media fodder that the conservative parties and hate groups needed. Rallies were being held all over the country – called "Celebrations of humanity." Extremist religious groups offered enthusiastic support for these rallies, recruiting youths at churches, neighborhood organizations, even right out of malls and movie theaters. Claire's previous impromtu visit on the Aaron Neil show was no longer seen as an act of goodwill, but as a smokescreen designed to let down the public's guard so that her "demonic kind" could commit acts of terrorism.

The group of posthumans that rescued Claire, led by Claude Rains, was beginning to acquire the resources needed to fight them. After seeing the lengths the government and the public would go to in order to get rid of them, she knew the only chance she had was with them.

"So why are you here?" Claire asked bluntly as they walked, and Sylar was surprised at the lack of hostility in her tone.

Sylar stopped walking and turned around to face her. "I came to ask you to come back home."

Claire smirked. "Home? There's no such thing."

"We were building a home. You, me, Peter, and Emma."

"A home? _Us_?," Claire questioned cynically. "Is Angela included in that happy little home, because you should know, she got killed because of me."

Sylar looked away, into the yellow and green rows of corn that lined the road. This was the moment he'd been dreading, because he didn't know how to tell Claire the truth – or if he even wanted to, in the first place.

* * *

He had stood in the shadows on the rooftop as Noah Bennett argued with Peter and Hiro about the ethical implications of their plan to wipe all memory and belief in human evolution from the minds of the general public. Truthfully, it all bored him; he could care less one way or another if humans knew about them; he knew they'd find some way of denying what was in front of them.

But then there was the explosion, in the building where Bennett, his girlfriend, and Peter should have been but weren't, thanks to Sylar's suggestion that Hiro teleport them out of there. Hardly a coincidence. _Someone doesn't like them_, Sylar thought with a sing-song cadence.

Noah bolted for the exit with Lauren. Hiro tried to stand in their way and got shoved viciously to the ground.

Peter helped Hiro up. Throwing Sylar a wary glance, he turned his attention to his Japanese friend. "Someone obviously wanted to stop Bennett's plans even more than we did."

"Who would do this? Who else knew?" Hiro asked.

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. But I do know that they're going to blame us for this. You need to get out of here."

"What about you, Peter?"

Peter looked again into the darkness where Sylar stood. "I'll be fine. Just go. Be safe."

Hiro nodded and disappeared in less than a second. Sylar emerged as soon as Hiro was gone. He looked questioningly at Peter's horrified face. "I hope you don't think I had anything to do with this," he chided.

Peter opened his mouth to answer, then turned and coughed raggedly into his sleeve from the smoke and heat in the air. "What are you doing here?" he asked Sylar once he'd caught his breath.

Sylar looked out over the city skyline, to where the police and fire vehicles were now congregating around the inferno of the Watergate. "Having your back in case anything went wrong. Apparently, it did. Someone had very good timing."

"Because someone knew where we would be," Peter added.

Sylar and Peter looked at each other in realization. "The girls!" Peter cried.

They'd flown back to Albany as quickly as they could after they couldn't reach Claire or Angela on their phones. By the time they got there, however, it was too late.

They could tell all the windows on the ground floor had been smashed as they approached the house, and the gate had been broken and bent by a car forcibly driving through it. Fortunately for them, no one had called the police.

Sylar entered the house first, holding up his hand to use his telekinesis if necessary. The house was still and quiet, only the faint sound of the television blaring from the sitting room. With the exception of the windows broken and a few chairs knocked down, the house was intact.

"Claire? Mom?" Peter called as he followed Sylar. "Where are they?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure if…" Sylar stopped mid sentence when he saw what was lying at the bottom of the stairway. Quickly he turned around and blocked Peter from entering.

"What is it?" Peter demanded, pushing against Sylar's extended arms. "Let me go, Sylar!"

Sylar's eyes felt heavy and strange for some reason. He realized, as he shook his head, that they were tears.

"Damn it, let me see!" Peter shouted, and succeeded in pushing away from the other man to peer into the other room.

Peter was on his knees on the floor, before he even knew how he got there. His arms were around his mother's body, and the blood that had spilled from her wound was wetting his chest and stomach. He couldn't cry, couldn't scream. He couldn't even blink. He just sat on the floor with her body, rocking it as you would a baby. Numb in his grief.

It was an hour before Sylar could disentangle Peter from Angela's body. Peter was still in such a daze that he offered no resistance when Sylar carried him up the stairs and put him to bed.

Sylar laid Angela out in one of the other bedrooms. It was bare and white, adorned only with a small twin bed, an end table, and a chair. Being on the top floor, and in an old house, this room was colder than the other rooms. It felt…ethereal, somehow. Strangely peaceful, and apart from the world.

Sylar sighed as he looked down at her. He had mixed emotions when it came to Angela Petrelli. On the surface, he absolutely reviled her. She was scheming, manipulative. She'd seen his one weakness – his desperate need to be loved – and she'd taken advantage of it by pretending to be his mother. She was unapologetic about her deceit. She'd even admitted that using people was, simply, "what she did."

But Sylar couldn't lie to himself: he _had_ loved this woman, once. Once, very briefly, when he believed that he belonged to her. It was that brief period of loving her that had made his hatred for her burn all the brighter later on when he learned that he was nothing but a pawn to her.

There was something else, Sylar knew. There had to be. There had to have been some other reason for why he had tears in his eyes when he saw her. For most people, it would be easy to guess that it was empathy for Peter, that it was Peter he cared about and so it was his grief that Sylar had internalized.

But Sylar knew that wasn't it. He knew, no matter how he might try to redeem himself to the things he'd done, he wasn't an empathetic person. Not in that way, at least. There might come a day when he was good enough that someone could give him the love he'd craved, but he was always going to be a selfish creature at heart.

Then, like a kick to the back of the head, Sylar knew what it was.

It was Nathan.

Sylar could still feel the man in his head after all this time. He still saw glimpses of Nathan's memory, he smiled or frowned at them sometimes. Sometimes when he spoke, especially to Peter, he felt like it was a different voice coming from his lips. Now, with Angela dead, he was experiencing Nathan's grief, Nathan's pain.

He chuckled bitterly. He supposed that it was Nathan's revenge for taking his life away, that now Sylar was forced to share a part of his existence with the dead man's ghost.

Sylar realized that Angela's eyes were still slightly open, green and white glimmering from the slightly wrinkled lids. He reached out and gently touched the lids to shut them.

And that was when it hit him. The gift he'd taken from that company agent kicked in at the touch of her flesh and he was overwhelmed with memories from Angela Petrelli's life. He stumbled backward, falling to the floor and his mind was awash in the impressions he was taking in.

Fortunately for him, the earlier things from her life were like flashes of color. Little things like images of her family and friends, and places she'd been to floated past his paralyzed eyes. His mind struggled to decode it, to compartmentalize it so that it would make sense.

And then, like a butterfly touching down upon a particular flower whose nectar was known to be the sweetest, Sylar's mind brought into focus a particular memory, one of the very last experiences before Angela's death.

Sylar was seeing through her eyes. She was sitting at a table in a small café with a tall thin man with gray hair, having coffee. The sun was heavy and golden – afternoon in New York City. From the looks of it, it was before the Central Park Ferris Wheel incident, as the people around them were still moving in blissful obliviousness.

The man across the table looked world-weary and suspicious, but he also seemed genuinely happy to be with her. His blue eyes crinkled as he drank his coffee.

"So? Will you do it?" Sylar could hear Angela ask.

The man chuckled lightly. "It's quite a tall order, wouldn't you say?" He had a British accent. "Breaking into your house, pretending to be terrorists – "

"The government," Angela corrected.

"Same thing to me," the man retorted. "Duping your granddaughter into joining my group – deceit is not our way, Angela."

Sylar, as Angela, took the man's hand. "Claude, please. Claire is not safe out in this world, and she's too stubborn to understand that. She just needs guidance, that's all."

"But she has you," Claude reminded her.

Angela looked away, and Sylar could feel tears beginning to just prick at her eyes. "Not for long. That's the other part of the favor I need to ask of you. When your group breaks into the house, I…I need you to shoot me."

"What!" Claude exclaimed, then looked around when he realized a few people had heard him and were looking at their table. "Angela, this is insane," he resumed in a softer voice. "You're asking me to kill you?"

Sylar could feel Angela smile sadly and tap the side of her head. "Three months ago, before I started having the visions of the mess that's to come, I was having trouble remembering where I'd put things. I forgot how to get to my favorite theatre one night. A friend who I've known all my life called me and I couldn't remember her name. I'm in the first stages of Alzheimer's, Claude. It's manageable right now, but it's only going to get worse."

"Angela."

"No, please. Let me explain. All my life I've been a capable woman – a force to be reckoned with. I've been the woman with all the answers, who can hold her own against anyone and anything. I don't want to go out of this life a shell of a person who can't even remember her own name. While I can still make the choices for myself, I want to choose when my death will be. I want my son and granddaughter to remember me the way I am – right now."

Claude sighed. "Angela, like you've said, they're only visions. Maybe Claire will make a different choice, maybe she won't –"

"It doesn't make any difference, Claude," Angela interrupted. "This…disease is still going to take me, one way or another. If I have any choice in my matter, I want the end to be with a bang, not a whimper."

When he still hesitated, she took his hand. "You're the only one I can trust – the only one I have left. Peter will have Emma, but Claire will be all alone. Noah will pull away from her. Her mother can't help her. And I don't trust Sylar as far as I can throw him. Please…once I get her to my summer house in Albany, just come with your group and collect her. The whole experience will shake her to the point where she will come to rely on you."

Claude shook his head in amazement. "You're really serious about this. You've completely thought this through."

She nodded. "Yes. And one other thing. I want _you_ to shoot me. Don't let anyone else do it."

He smirked. "Did you really think I'd ever let anyone else have the honor of bringing the great Angela Petrelli down? Not on your life."

Then everything went black, and Sylar found himself staring at the pocked white ceiling of the cold room.

He picked himself off of the floor, bracing himself against side of the bed. He found himself face to face with Angela's corpse.

"Huh," he grunted in disgust. "Even in death you're still pulling the strings."

* * *

Sylar had come to Maryland convinced that he'd eventually find it in himself to tell Claire the truth. Instead, he sidestepped it.

"We cremated her, Emma and I," he told her. We scattered her ashes in the ocean. Peter's in…very quiet grief. Maybe it's – it's good that the rest of the world is in such turmoil. It's given him time to retreat into himself and mourn without worrying about anything else."

Claire shook her head in disbelief. "I never thought it could happen."

"What's that?"

"You being anything other than a monster that terrorized my family."

Sylar looked down at the potholed road. "I wasn't always a monster, Claire. I was able to feel things once. Maybe I'm…just getting back to the person I was."

Claire gave a short, humorless laugh. "The things you do never go away, though. I'm learning that right now."

She seemed so small, so pale, as he looked at her on that dusty country road. She'd always been fire and gold to him before, fierce in her love and hate. Now the light had dimmed in her eyes. He knew at that moment, he'd do anything to make it shine the way it had before.

"Let me help you," he said softly.

She shook her head. "You're not the one to do it."

He narrowed his eyes, feeling the sting. "Then what am I supposed to do, Claire? How do I make it better? How do I find a way to live with myself?"

Claire put her arms around herself as the wind began to blow briskly around them. She didn't answer him right away. Finally, she said, "I think – I think what you need is to…be away."

"Away?"

"When people do horrible things, they go to prison, right? But that won't work for you – no prison can hold you. Maybe…you need to make your own prison. You need to be apart from everything and everyone. So that...by not having people around you…for a while… life is more precious to you than it ever was before."

"Claire, I was trapped in a prison with Peter for years! It was-"

"Not your decision," Claire pointed out. "Matt Parkman trapped you there. This has to be your choice, or it's not going to mean anything to you."

Sylar threw up his hands in frustration. "I don't need to be in exile! I can help people here!"

Claire walked up to him now, their bodies less than an inch from one another. She stood so close to him, he could see the flecks of gold in her irises. "Then I'll make a deal with you," Claire replied. "If you can look me in the eyes and tell me that when you arrived at our camp you weren't once tempted to kill someone and take their power, I'll leave with you right now."

When Sylar hesitated, Claire smiled sadly, knowing she was right. "Goodbye, Sylar," she told him, and turned to head back to the camp.

Sylar panicked as he watched her leave. This was his last chance to tell Claire the truth about Angela's plan – the last chance to take her back with him.

"Claire!" he called out. She stopped and turned to look at him.

"Claire, I…" he paused, and before he knew it, he was asking the wrong question. "Is there any way that you could – well, not anytime soon, I know, but maybe someday – that you could find it in you to forgive me for what I've done to you?"

Claire smiled sadly. "If you'd asked me six years ago if it could be possible that people could fly, or travel in time, or die and come back to life, I'd have said no way. But that's the world we live in now. So I guess…to answer your question…anything is possible." With that, she turned and walked away, the sound of her footsteps feeling almost deafening to him.

* * *

The morning was pale and grey when Sylar returned to the house. He looked up at the top floor, at the open shutters of the bedroom. That was where he'd left Peter when he went to find Claire, and he knew that his friend was still mourning in there. He brought his hands together, creating blue sparks of electricity that crackled and sputtered, lighting up the glum sky.

Once he'd had the vision and realized that the house hadn't been attacked by the police at all, Sylar knew it was safe for them to remain in Angela's house. Peter offered no resistance anyway. Once Emma returned and told Sylar what happened, she immediately took on the role of caregiver. When Sylar got ready to leave to try to get Claire back, she warned him gravely that it wasn't going to be easy to do.

"She trusts those people – and her old boyfriend is with them," Emma told him. "I don't think she's coming back." Emma peered in at Peter's sleeping form in the bedroom. "Maybe it's best if she doesn't."

A few minutes later, Emma emerged from the house and met him on the lawn, having seen his arrival message through the shutters.

She smiled sadly as she pulled her thin sweater closer to her. "She wouldn't come back," she said.

"No."

Emma sighed. "Oh well. Come inside, and I'll make you some breakfast." She begun to turn away, and Sylar caught her arm, making her look him in the face.

"I'm not staying, Emma. I only came back to say goodbye."

Emma frowned. "Goodbye? Wha – why?"

Sylar sighed and took her hands in his. "I don't know what Peter's told you about me, but I'm not a good guy."

"Sylar-"

"No, really, I'm not. I've done some terrible things. Especially to Peter."

"But, you're his friend. He relies on you, he trusts you. Whatever you've done, it can't be that bad."

Sylar chuckled sadly. "Peter's a good-hearted person. And he's done his best to help me, but I can't stay here. If I do, then I'm just making light of the pain I've caused. Someone…very close to me made me realize that I need to be away."

He reached into the pocket of his coat and held out an envelope to her. "This is for you and Peter. Think of it as a parting gift."

Emma gently took it from him, and looked inside. The contents made her eyes grew huge in disbelief, and she immediately pushed it at him. "Sylar, no! All this money! Where did you get it?"

"It's my life savings," he told her. "Everything that was valuable to me. I'm not going to need it where I'm going."

"But, I can't accept this! What will happen to you-"

"Shh," he cut her off, pressing the envelope into her hand. "Take it, take it. I'll be fine. Just use this to build a life with Peter. Take care of him with it. You're all he has now."

Emma's fingers closed slowly around the fragile white paper. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. "Thank you so much."

He smiled at her. "Tell Peter…I'll be back someday, when he needs me." With that, he turned and walked out of the yard.

Emma stood in the grass and watched Sylar leave. The wind began to pick up, and he was nearly to the end of the block when she began to feel the lightest of drizzles on her face. Still she watched him as he walked, until he was nothing but a black spot, moving against the sky.


	14. Chapter 14

When Marina finished the latest chapter on the Enlighten, she felt as if she'd awakened from a deep sleep. She had been so engrossed in it that she'd forgotten about everything else. She remembered once more where she was and where she was going.

She looked up at the snow-covered window. "He let her go. I can't believe he let her go."

"Who?" Sato asked.

Marina jumped slightly, taking half a second to remember that she wasn't alone. Shaking off the embarrassment, she answered his question. "My great-grandfather. He went to ask my great-grandmother to come home, and he just let her walk away. I mean," Marina paused, holding the electronic pad up again to re-read the last few words. "I mean, he loved her. Couldn't she see that?"

"Well," Sato began, trying to feel for the right words. "It was a richer time then. People took things for granted because they could. Maybe she…she just didn't feel like she needed that in her life. But things turned out for them in the end, right? You're proof of that."

Marina didn't answer. A few minutes later, Sato brought the cruiser to a stop and turned off the engine.

Marina frowned. "Why did we stop here?"

Sato scowled, as if he had to explain something simple to a child. "Two miles up the highway is a checkpoint. There's no way we can get through there. We're going to have to walk the rest of the way. That agent we dropped off has probably gotten to that callbox by now, which means they're going to be looking for us soon. We'll be harder to detect on foot."

Marina looked at him in disbelief. "Walk? Do you know how far that could be-"

"No, but it would help if you did," Sato interrupted, his irritation right on the surface. "You're the one who needed to come here – well, here we are. But the problem, my dear, is that 'here' is 3 million square miles. So you're going to need to figure out where in that area we need to be."

Marina glared at Sato. She didn't like his tone. After all, he'd practically invited himself on her trip, pretty much taking it over. She didn't beg him for his help; she'd given him a way out several times before they'd gotten there, in fact.

"If we need to walk, then we'll walk," she said through gritted teeth. "I know we need to go north. So let's go north. Can you handle that?"

Sato held out his hand towards the bleak frozen landscape in a mock display of chivalry. "After you, my lady."

* * *

Seer took a long, luxurious sip of his merlot, letting it roll around his mouth before swallowing. "Mmm," he reveled. "Good year."

"_Last_ year, you mean," his host, Keiran Blade, corrected. "What you're drinking, Sanders, is one of the final products of all vinification. No vines left. No vines, no wine."

Seer looked at his glass uneasily and put it down on the small glass entertaining table. He hadn't come to talk about this, and now he desperately looked around the elegantly appointed room for something that would distract his attention.

Blade had achieved the level of wealth and power Seer had longed for his entire life. Nothing of value got past him this far up the east coast. No one crossed him and lived. But, if you played by his rules, he could make all your dreams come true. That much about him was known to everyone who played the game.

What wasn't widely known was that Keiran Blade had been born Kristina Bozman in the early twenty second century. Always having lush but androgynous features, Blade easily made the change to a man – because he quickly found that in a post-apocalyptic world, one of the few advantages women had were their bodies. Feminism essentially went out the door when resources were scarce. If he wanted to be taken seriously, he needed to be Keiran, not Kristina.

Blade's blue eyes burned like a cold flame in his sleek, dark head as he smoked a clove cigarette. "So tell me about this special item you have for me."

Without thinking, Seer leaned forward in excitement to recount what he'd seen. "I couldn't believe it when I saw her. She looks like nothing but a little girl, but what she can do…ohhh…you have to see it."

Blade rolled his eyes and put out his cigarette in his crystal ashtray. "You've wasted my time. I don't lack for anything, least of which is company."

"No, no! Not that. She can heal herself. I saw it."

Blade was about to walk away until he heard this. Instantly he sat down and barked at his servants to leave them. When they were gone, he leaned toward Seer, almost menacingly. "What does she look like?"

"Blond hair, clear blue eyes. Petite. Batshit crazy."

"Her name?"

"Uh…Claire?"

The rich man smiled, and if Seer didn't know for sure this man was such a hardcase, he would have sworn a tear had come to his eye. "She's been found. It's been nearly thirty years, and she's found." He now looked Seer up and down in an unabashedly cruel way. "I've been looking for her for my entire adult life, using countless resources, and the best trackers money can buy. And a no-name, illiterate fisherman in his rusty trawl brings her in. I guess this just proves that the universe has one sick sense of humor."

Seer willed himself not to break eye contact with him. He wasn't going to show any shame for being who he was. Yes, he was a fisherman, running his grandfather's business and not his own. His grandfather wasn't filthy rich like this pillock Seer was dealing with, but he was a good, strong man, and out of all the people in the entire world, this Claire Bennett, this amazing creature, came to Idar Sanders for help. It was the first time Seer felt a glimmer of guilt for what he'd done.

When Seer refused to back down, Blade gave what he would consider a gracious chuckle and said, "You will, of course, be well compensated for your find. Do you know who Claire Bennett is?"

"I know enough."

"Hm. Well, whatever you know, you don't know the half of it. Claire Bennett and her husband were quite the 'rock stars' in their day. It's a shame what happened to them."

"What did happen to them?" Seer was genuinely interested, having heard from two people now about Claire Bennett's personal tragedy.

"I don't know the whole story, but there's always been an urban legend that her husband killed himself – had himself ground into a powder – and tricked Claire Bennett into drinking him. Utter nonsense, of course. In any case, they were both quite powerful at one time. If this girl is the lost icon, I've got some great plans for her." Blade gave a sad chuckle. "I might as well enjoy her gifts while I can."

"What do you mean, 'while you can'?"

Blade flicked his shining eyes to meet Seer's bafflement. "Really? You can't be that ignorant. The world is an ice-encrusted carcass. The world's foremost scientists have no way to warm the planet. In 2126, there were 3 billion people on the planet. Now there's about 1 million left, and I'm being generous. It's only a matter of time, Sanders."

Seer felt ill. He'd never actually considered that the earth was dying. He knew it wouldn't last, obviously, but he just assumed that it nothing major would happen until after he was dead.

If his grandfather were here, he'd say it was the folly of the young people, who had never seen – or could barely remember - what the world used to be like before the storms inexplicably hit all the major countries of the world: how warm and green it used to be. How the oceans moved and caught the rays of the sun, so it shined like a thousand diamonds.

Young people didn't realize that the world was dying, because they just got used to it being that way. Older people like Seer's grandfather realized it, and something else: there was malice to the crisis, there was a hatred and an anger to the storms. It felt wrathful, like something out of the bible.

People felt it as they watched the brutal blizzards ravage cities and bury everything in snow and ice. This was no naturally occurring phenomena, despite a lack of scientific proof. There appeared to be a pattern to how certain places in the world were hit and others were mostly spared. Canada, for example, became drastically colder but remained mostly intact, while its southern sister-nation the United States was virtually decimated, leaving only about 10% of the county habitable.

Fortunately for Seer, his mood automatically lightened when Blade's messenger arrived at that moment to announce that a large red crate had arrived, stamped with a Port of Florida seal.

"Excellent!" Blade bellowed, slapping Seer on the back as if he were his dearest friend. "Come, let's take a look!"

Seer could feel his heart racing as Blade's men fiddled with the locking clamps on the crate. He began to imagine again the large house he'd buy in the Caribbean, the gorgeous men he'd fill with it. So what if men like Keiran Blade thought everything was ending? They obviously weren't smart enough to put their resources into self-preservation. Everything could go to hell around him, but Seer would be fine, he knew. He was sure there was nothing , absolutely nothing, that couldn't be bought – even more time.

Blade insisted on being the first to peer into the crate once the clamps were removed. Seer watched the rich man's back as he peered in. Seer expected some sort of utterance of triumph from Keiran, but there was nothing. It was silence. Blade straightened himself, his back still turned, then motioned one of his men over and quietly told him something.

The man nodded, then, without warning, he lunged at Seer and punched him in the gut.

Seer fell backwards onto the ground, the wind literally knocked out of him. "What the hell…what was that for?" he gasped.

"Pick this two-faced motherfucker off the ground and show him what that was for!" Blade roared at his minions, his back still turned.

Seer was picked up bodily off of the spot and carried to the crate, where they practically shoved his head into the metal and wood enclosure.

He gasped when he looked in, then fought the two men off long enough so he could turn his head and retch in horror.

Inside the crate lay the body of his lover, the Port of Florida officer Michel. He'd been stripped nude and his skin had a sickening ash color to it. His eyes were still open, in an expression of absolute horror and agony. He probably suffered right up to his last breath.

"Oh ga-awd! Oh ga-awd!" Seer screamed, now leaning against the men who held him as his legs couldn't hold him up.

"Get your shit together, man!" Blade snapped as his men turned Seer around to see their boss.

"I-I don't know what happened! She was in there, I paid that man lying in there myself to have her brought here! Someone got to him…oh gawd…" Seer blubbered.

Blade rolled his eyes and pointed to one of his men. "Amistad, get a fully armored cruiser and provisions together. You're leaving in an hour."

"What are you talking about?" Seer asked as the two men released him.

The rich man smiled. "I'm giving you all you need to find Claire Bennett's body and bring her back to me. Someone has my property, and I want it returned."

"But I…I don't know where to look."

Keiran Blade laid a comforting hand on Seer's shoulder. "You will, don't worry. Your life depends on it, my friend."

Releasing the terrified fisherman from his hold, Blade calmly walked back to the crate. Peering in thoughtfully, he put out a tentative finger and touched the cheek of the dead man. Instantly the body turned to ash.

"Hmm," he mused. "Someone does excellent work."

* * *

The snow was getting deeper as they walked. No longer piles, or hills, the frozen snow now formed impenetrable walls that seemed to mock Marina as she legs struggled to carry her through. The snow had even stopped by that time of day, but the stray flakes still swirled through the air, sticking to warm flesh and making it difficult to see.

She thought she knew the cold. She believed that she'd become hardened to it, to its quick, slippery, penetrating nature, having lived in it for years. But the coldness in this country – the country that she'd been born in and her ancestors had been born in – it was different from anywhere else. It felt different somehow. Fierce, and malicious.

There was no sound around her; it was like walking in nothingness. But she knew Sato was there, that he was struggling with his steps through the intractable snow and that he was cold too. And that gave her a small sense of comfort. There was a grey form lying across the white shelf of snow, floating, drifting sadly. Then soon came another grey ghost, following the other, slightly larger, doing the same sad slow dance. It took Marina a few seconds to realize she was looking at hers and Sato's shadows on the snow. He was following her, relying on her to know where they were going.

Marina's legs were moving; of that she was fairly sure. But it still felt like she was standing still, as mile after mile looked exactly the same. America was a place lacking hope.

Marina missed Claire, more than she thought it was possible. There were days when she wanted nothing more than to be rid of the mad woman-child she'd been saddled with. But now, suffering in this frozen, abandoned desert, there was nothing she wanted more than her.

Marina's mind cried out to the old woman:_ Claire. Why did you bring me here? Why did you leave me to suffer? I took care of you all these years. Why couldn't you be good to me too?_

Then there was a sharp blow, as if Marina had been hit in the back of the head. She was blinded for a moment, paralyzed as well. And then she could see. She was with Claire, seeing her struggle through the snow just like she was, the snow sticking to her small, deceptively frail-looking body. But she was seeing through her eyes too.

It took Marina a moment to realize she wasn't cold. She wasn't cold, because it was summertime in Claire's mind.

_A bead of sweat formed on her perfect peach forehead, formed from the heat generated by the blazing June sun and the seemingly endless lines of computers in the clean white lab. It trickled from her yellow hairline, moving down, down…threatening to drop onto the precipice of her nose._

_A hand swept by and caught the bead, fingers pinching the salty water together, rubbing it into the ridges of his fingers until it evaporated._

_Claire didn't flinch; he didn't make her flinch anymore. Overall she was glad about this, but there was a part of her that bizarrely missed it. It wasn't because she liked being afraid of him. It was because her retracting to him meant that she believed in his power, that there were limitless possibilities to what he could do and be._

_Now she knew him, knew his fears and weaknesses. She knew there were limitations to his power, and she knew that he could be hurt. _

"_I have to do it, Babe," he said. "I won't risk anyone else's life."_

"_You can't!" she told him. "They don't know for sure if the machine works!"_

_Another man in a labcoat came up to them. "The machine is ready. Are you going, General Bennett?"_

"_No," Gabriel answered for her. "I am."_

_Then there was the machine looming over them, tall and black and gleaming. The massive doors slid open like the hungry jaws on some ferocious beast, waiting to take warm, live flesh inside of it._

_Not taking his eyes off of the machine, he began to walk toward it. Claire held his arm back. "There has to be another way. Just-just give me some time. We'll find another way."_

_Gabriel looked at the behemoth standing before them, then back at Claire. "There is no more time, Babe. Only the time this machine can give us." He took her in his arms. "I left something for Roselyn. Make sure she gets it." _

_Claire frowned. "What-"_

_He ran his fingers over the curves of her face, as if trying to remember her. "You'll understand soon. I promise."_

"_We need to get started, General!" one of the doctors called to them, clearly embarrassed to be watching the scene before him._

_Before she could answer him, she felt Gabriel's warm, familiar mouth capture hers. He pushed her to him, his fingers reaching beneath her the shirt of her uniform to press into her flesh. She felt something flowing into her, burning and sharp, like electricity. Claire tried to pull away from him, but he was too strong. He was giving her something, and it was changing her. It was filling her mind, stretching it almost. She felt like she was going to burn, to explode into a million pieces…_

"Marina!"

And then it was bitterly cold again. And dark. It was a struggle to open her eyes.

"Marina!" There was that sound again, of a voice calling her name.

She was stuffed into something. It was soft, but unyielding. She couldn't move, couldn't even lift her head. More sound came to her, the distant sound of cruisers and shouting voices.

As her eyes finally began to focus, she saw the cloudy night sky above her and a wall of snow in her periphery. She was lying face up on the ground. Just as she managed to pry her arm free from her powdery prison, a hand grabbed hers and brutally pulled at her, raising her from the snow.

Marina could just barely make out Sato's frustrated and panicked face in the dim moonlight. "They've found us," he told her simply. "Come on!"

Marina and Sato ran, but the shin-high snow taunted them at every frantic stride they made. They buckled at its height and weight, using their hands now too to try to push the heavy piles away from them. Several hundred yards away, they could hear the feds cutting smoothly through the snow, closing in on them at a frightening pace.

Even in the panic of being caught, even as she felt the lights of the cruisers begin to shine on their backs, Marina's thoughts still turned to the vision she'd just had. Had it been real? Had that truly happened to Claire at one time? How did Marina manage to see her great-grandmother's memories? And that man – the tall dark man with the fierce love in his eyes who'd argued with Claire – had that been her great-grandfather? What was happening to her?

A shrill, whistling sort of noise, followed by a deep thud, raised Marina out of her thoughts. Dragging her feet desperately through the snow, she called out to Sato, "They're getting close." She squinted upwards, to a chain of rock formations. "If we can get to those caves, we might be okay."

Sato didn't answer her. Slowly coming to a stop, she turned and looked behind her. He wasn't there. Limping a few feet back, she peered into a mound a snow that had been flattened down and realized it was Sato. He'd been shot with something and now lay as still as if he were dead.

"Sato!" Marina cried out hoarsely, barely able to speak from fatigue and the cold. Even though she knew their attackers were just yards away, and her strength was about to fail her, she had to try to keep going. With her remaining strength she drove her hands into the bed of snow and grasped her companion under the arms, knees trembling as she fought to raise him from the snow.

Marina had finally gotten him vertical and out of the snowbed, but now had to struggle to stay upright herself as the unconscious man's dead weight threatened to bring her down. She dragged Sato's body with her as she stumbled the next few feet. She knew they were shouting to her on their speakers, knew they had the lights shining blindingly bright in her face, knew they had all their guns trained on her, but she wasn't going to stop. Not until she couldn't walk anymore.

Marina turned her head just slightly to see Sato's strangely calm, sleeping face sag against her neck. "Sato, please," she begged. "Please wake up. I need you!" she felt her chest begin to spasm uncontrollably and her eyes being to get wet – a strange feeling she hadn't had in years. "I don't know what to do."

Finally, after this admittance, one of the snipers from the U.S. government took perfect aim at her and fired a dart into her neck, bringing her futile escape to an end.

It was a slow motion fall. She was falling, flying backwards into the snow, bringing Sato down with her. The last thing she could feel was the cold of the snow on her back and the warmth of his body on her chest. Her eyelids brought themselves down like curtains falling on the end of a show, and then there was blackness, only blackness.


End file.
